


Happy Were Those Who Dwelt Within The Eye

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Series: Darkness [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Magnus Archives, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Gen, Horror, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mystery, Nonbinary Doctor (Doctor Who), Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Tags May Change, and, chapters tagged individually for specific potential triggers, in that I follow the same framing device as the podcast, its not anyone you'll care about I promise, kind of, lots of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28825206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: Theta didn't ask to be Head Archivist. She didn't even work in the right department. But, with the old Archivist dead,someoneneeds to do the job. She just hopes she makes it out with her sanity - and her life - intact.
Relationships: Past Twelfth Doctor/Missy, Past Twelfth Doctor/The Master (Simm), Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Series: Darkness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154603
Comments: 128
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is a TMA AU. No, I don't have it planned too far in advance, nor do I have a proper posting schedule planned, nor do you need to have either seen Doctor Who or listened to the Magnus Archives for this (though one or the other is probably a good idea). I was struck by inspiration tonight, slammed out a chapter in an hour flat, and have decided to inflict this on all of you now.  
> Because I am Thoschei trash, there will Eventually be some shipping, but it's going to be a weird and slow burn, so don't hold your breath for it.  
> (The title is from Darkness by Lord Byron, by the way :] )

"I don't know if this thing is even- oh, nope, there's the little green light, which is usually a good sign. I say  _ usually, _ but I don't think it's ever  _ not _ been a good sign. Then again, could be a bad sign in this case, but at least it's something. Better than I got trying to record with the tape recorders, or my laptop. Or Yaz's laptop. Weird little thing, though. Never seen anything like it. Kind of-"

_ Clunk. _

"Whoops. Sorry. Didn't mean to drop you. Maybe I can edit that out when I upload it to the digital archive. Speaking of, should probably stop rambling and start archiving. Since that's what I'm here for, I guess. Archiving. As an archivist. The  _ head _ archivist, even.

"Still weird to call myself that. Spent the last five years calling John that, and now he's… dead. Mr. Kingsfield just promoted me out of Artifact Storage of all places and now I'm here, sitting in a dead man's chair, doing his job. And I mean, it's not like he's some  _ random _ dead guy, either. We were on a first name basis, even. Always joked about making a band, and he said he'd play bass if I'd play viola. Guess that won't be happening."

_ Sigh. _

"Right, anyways, archiving. Fourth time's a charm for reading and recording this statement, I hope. Here goes nothing.

"Statement of Valerie Hawkins, regarding a hike and the death of a friend. Original statement given August 8th, 2014. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ I don't normally go on hikes. Not that I'm not an active person, but hiking has never really been my thing, you know? But Jordan - Jordan Rawlins, in case you really need to know - insisted, and I could never say no to her. We'd been best friends since we were kids, and even though she had two kids and taught chemistry and I'm happily single and manage insurance policies for a living, we tried to keep in touch. And Jordan's always been the outdoorsy kind, so when she had days off and her kids were over at a friends house, we'd go on walks and stuff together. _

_ She said she'd found this new trail and that she wanted to make a weekend of it for her birthday, just the two of us. So I booked us a hotel room and she planned our route, and the Friday of, we took my car there so that her husband had theirs in case of emergencies. It was a nice hotel room, now that I'm thinking about it. Really cute painting on the wall of a boat. _

_ Anyways, we got up on Saturday and went out to the start of the trail. Jordan's birthday's in May, so everything was blooming and it was hell on my allergies, but worth it because she seemed so happy. She kept taking pictures of all the trees and the birds and everything. _

_ Then we heard someone on the trail behind us. I turned around, but there wasn't anyone there. We'd both heard it though - four footsteps, heavy ones, like someone with boots on. But since we didn't see anybody, I suggested that maybe it was just a woodpecker or something. And Jordan kind of shrugged and nodded and went back to taking a picture of a tree. _

_ Eventually, we started walking again, and we heard the footsteps again. Another set of four, all real quick together. I turned around again, and… nothing. So we kept walking, and every time we'd turn around, we'd hear it again. I say we, cause Jordan was turning around just as much as I was, and she looked even more worried than I felt. _

_ About the tenth time it happened, she started acting really… weird. She stopped taking pictures of stuff, and then she stopped walking entirely. She said she wanted to turn around, and I didn't blame her. It was properly creepy, and neither of us had more than our mobiles and some snacks with us, so it seemed like a good idea to leave. _

_ We were only about a mile up the trail at this point, when we decided to turn around. Jordan walked a lot faster on the way back, though, so we were a good ways back when we heard the footsteps again. _

_ I really can't explain why I did what I did next. It was just so terrifying all at once, like my body suddenly figured out I was in danger and jumped straight to a flight response. It felt like that moment on a rollercoaster, right before you're about to tip over the edge of the hill, but everywhere and unending and  _ **_awful._ **

_ So I ran. I took off running and I didn't even see if Jordan was behind me, and when I heard this crunching noise behind me I ran even faster and by the time I got the end of the trail I was all out of breath and shaking and I decided to just take a bus back to the hotel and wait for her to come back. _

_ She didn't. I waited for her until Sunday evening and I didn't leave the hotel room once because I was so scared that whatever got her was going to get me too. When I went home I left a voicemail with her husband saying I wasn't sure where she was and then I turned my mobile off for the next day so he couldn't call me back. By the time I turned it back on, though, they'd found her body. _

_ Well. What was left of it. I'm not going to go into the details - you guys can look up the news reports if you want, that's how I got all of my information - but it was pretty terrible. The police came by to talk to me once, and when I told them what happened they didn't really seem to believe me. Told me I should talk to a grief counselor or something. I did, by the way. He didn't really believe me either. _

_ So I thought maybe you guys might know more, or be able to do something with my story. I don't know. I just wanted to get it off my chest to someone who wouldn't laugh at me, and you guys take stories way weirder than mine, so…  _

"Statement ends.

"I… I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say after reading it. Once Yaz and Graham and Ryan have done some more research, I'll add that. But right now, I just feel kind of empty. John said one time that reading the statements was a bit draining, and I think I get what he means. Meant. I can't help but feel bad. This statement's two years old, now, so it's not like we can really do anything to help Ms. Hawkins, but I wish we could."

_ Fingers drumming on a tabletop. _

"It wasn't something natural, I'm sure of it. Sure, maybe it could've been a serial killer - I'll have Ryan look into that, see if there's any other killings in that area with the same M.O. - but I swear that four beats thing sounds familiar… If I think of it, I guess I'll mention it when I add on the bit about extra research."

"So, Ryan looked into other deaths around spring 2014, and he actually found two more that were very, very similar. One was Richard Certon in January, and the other was Patricia Mills in April. Both found dead on a hiking trail, both originally gone out with a friend - though Ms. Hawkins is the only one who came to us - and both similarly… mutilated. The autopsy reports he found detailed claw and bite marks like those of large carnivores, probably something canid. Local authorities put it up to an escaped Great Dane with rabies, but there were no reports of escaped dogs in the area, much less potentially rabid Great Danes.

"No luck finding any mention of the four beats anywhere, though. I even asked Graham to go through John's old paper files, but all he got was a few papercuts. I've put it on a sticky note on my laptop, so hopefully I'll remember to look into it when I've got the time.  _ If _ I've got the time, between organizing and recording everything.

"Which is what I ought to be doing now, really. So, guess this is goodbye for now. Hope whoever's listening to this in the future finds it helpful.

"End recording."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!  
> TW: food, lots of blood, knives and knife-inflicted injuries, brief mentions of needles

"So, it's been a week since I had to use this to record another statement. Most of them, we can just scan onto a computer and have it read aloud that way, but some of them… won't. They end up corrupted, even if we follow the exact same upload procedure. 'Course, you can kind of tell which ones won't upload nicely by looking at them. They're  _ real, _ not just someone who saw their neighbor's cat and thought it was a ghost.

"Not that there's anything wrong with ghost cats, but if there really  _ are _ ghost cats, the statements about them won't cooperate with anything but a live recording. Which is my job specifically, as head archivist."

_ Pause, followed by a deep breath. _

"Nope, still sounds wrong to say it. Maintenance finally got 'round to changing the plaque on my office door so that it's got my name on it, and I do a double take every time. It doesn't feel like my office yet, either. It's John's desk, and John's desk chair, and John's weirdly high shelving. Keep having to ask Ryan to get things off the top shelf, 'cause he's the only one tall enough.

"And I found one of his - John's, that is, not Ryan's - old coasters in his-  _ my _ desk drawer yesterday. It's pretty. Blue with this beautiful gold pattern on it, lots of interlocking circles. He drank a lot of tea. Used to have four mugs in the break room, all goofy novelty ones that his assistants bought him.

"I always wondered what happened to them. Clara quit, I think, which I didn't even know was possible, really. Nobody ever seems to quit this place. We just all work until we either die or get promoted to positions we didn't ask for. Not that I mind the new job, but I do kind of miss Artifact Storage. I mean, sure, there's less risk of getting eaten by a chair down here, but that was half the fun.

"Still, guess I should stop talking about my job and actually do it.

"Statement of Zachary Baumgartner, regarding a knife purchased at an antique shop. Original statement given October 15th, 2012. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ I'm doing this for my son, since he asked that I come here. I'll apologize in advance for the blood on this paper. I don't really have much control over it. _

_ I guess I'll start at the beginning. Cooking has been one of my passions since I was a teenager. I grew up in a bit of a rough home, so we never had much variety in what we ate, but one year my school offered a cooking class, and I had a free period after the Latin teacher got really sick and nobody could find a replacement, so I took it. It was amazing. The teacher, Ms. Linsko, wasn't a professional or anything, but she knew what she was talking about. It's the only class I really remember these days, though that might say more about me than her. _

_ After that year, I decided that while I wasn't good enough for culinary school, it was still something I wanted to keep up with. So while I was getting a degree in maths, I kept taking cooking classes when I had the time. That's how I met my wife, actually. We took the same class, and she was having trouble with her burner so I offered to share mine, and… well, we were married for thirty years before she passed away from cancer. _

_ After she died, I started cooking more. Mostly for myself, since our kids were out of the house by then, but also for charities and stuff. It felt like a good way to give back, since it was cooking that helped get me out of the same sort of situation as a lot of those people were in. _

_ One day, though, my favorite boning knife broke. I wasn't really surprised, since I'd had it for a good twenty years by that point, but it was a little annoying. All my other knives were from a set my wife bought me for my birthday, and I didn't want to have one that was mismatched, so I tried to find one from the same set to replace it. Looking on the internet didn't help much, as all the ones I could find were either in terrible condition or positively exorbitant. I ended up buying one that didn't match, and just kept hoping I'd be able to find a better one eventually. _

_ I wasn't really looking for a knife when I went to the antique shop. I was actually looking for a desk for my daughter, since she's really in to the older look of her furniture. Never did find a good desk, though, but I did find the perfect match to my old boning knife. It was cheap and in good condition, so I bought it and took it home. _

_ For the first few months, it worked perfectly. Then, one night, I was deboning some fish, and my hand slipped. I cut my finger, not too badly, but enough that it was bleeding. I put a plaster on it and called it a day. _

_ Once I finished deboning the fish and I'd put it in the oven, I realized the cut was still bleeding. It'd soaked through the plaster completely, and there was blood running down my finger. It didn't hurt, though. It just kept bleeding. _

_ I replaced the plaster, but bled through the new one pretty quickly too. I wasn't feeling dizzy or anything, so I didn't go to the hospital, but I did wrap it up tight before going to bed that night. _

_ When I woke up, it was still bleeding. It had actually bled through the towels I'd put around it, and I'd gotten blood all over my sheets. I washed them and decided to go to the doctor after that - I knew it couldn't be healthy to bleed for ten hours straight. _

_ They asked me if I had anemia or any other blood diseases, and when I said no, they asked to run some blood work. I said that was fine. When they drew my blood, I almost expected the needle wound to keep bleeding, too, but it didn't. _

_ They sent me home with a proper bandage and instructions to drink lots of water and eat iron-heavy foods, and told me they'd call me when the blood work was done. I listened, and they told me a few days later that my blood looked fine. Perfectly normal for a man of my age, they said. Nothing wrong. Asked if I'd still been having trouble with my finger, and I lied and said no. _

_ I know you shouldn't lie to medical professionals, but… they hadn't been able to help the first time, and I wasn't feeling any ill effects except for constantly needing to rewrap my finger, so I figured it was no big deal. _

_ The next time I used the boning knife was a few days later, and I was actually peeling a mango. Did you know you can do that with a boning knife? After all, they're meant for removing skin. _

_ When I cut into the mango, it  _ **_bled._ ** _ Red blood, like mine, like I'd been seeing and cleaning up for days and days. It dribbled out of the flesh of the fruit like juice. _

_ I was horrified, but I didn't know what to do, so I squeezed it. More blood came out, and it got onto my kitchen counter. It was sticky and warm and fresh. I almost wanted to lick it. To see if it was really blood. I knew it was, though. I could smell it, and it was so strong I could almost taste it. _

_ I tried to clean it up, but just like the cut on my finger, it wouldn't stop bleeding. As I picked the mango up to throw it out, it beat like a heart in my hand while it oozed blood all over me. I couldn't figure out if it was alive or not, but I knew I couldn't throw it away. _

_ I put the mango back on the cutting board and finished peeling it. If you asked me why, I couldn't tell you. But it felt like the right thing to do, to finish the job. My counters were a bloody, sticky mess when I was done, and the flesh of the fruit kept pumping out blood, but I knew I'd done what I had to. _

_ I ate the mango, eventually. It took me a little while to decide to do it, so it just sat there on the cutting board for a bit, more blood seeping onto the plastic and overflowing onto my counter. It had even started dripping onto the floor. _

_ It tasted like a normal mango, when I took the first bite. Sweet, a little tart, and the stringy bits got caught in my teeth. The blood got on my chin and my shirt, but I didn't care. I took another bite, and the flavor was meatier. More like the blood. Every bite I took, it grew more and more like raw, pulsing muscle, and less like a fruit. By the time I finished it, you could have told me it was a liver and I'd have believed you. _

_ There was blood all over my kitchen by that point, and all over me. I hadn't rewrapped my finger, so it had bled through the plaster and was dripping off my hand. I could feel the blood in my stomach, the pieces of the mango still beating away like little fragments of a heart. _

_ After I cleaned up my kitchen and took a shower, it was nearly time for lunch. I wasn't hungry. I was so, so full. The blood kept filling my stomach, almost overflowing. I coughed, once, that day, and it was red. _

_ I haven't had to eat since that day. The blood is all I need. It's an equilibrium, I think. It flows out through my finger, and fills me up from the inside. I can still feel the heart beating in pieces in my gut. _

"Statement ends."

_ Long, shuddering pause. _

"I think I might need to throw up. That's just disgusting. I'm never eating mangos again.

"He wasn't lying about the blood on the statement, either. There's red all over the paper, though thankfully most of it's on the edges. I guess he must've cut his non-dominant hand.

"This is the sort of thing we'd deal with back in Artifact Storage. Cursed knives, bleeding fruit, that one really  _ evil _ sheep. It's worse, though, reading it rather than seeing it. We've got safety procedures and back up plans, but Mr. Baumgartner didn't even get a warning. We know what we're getting into, kind of. He just wanted to buy a replacement knife.

"I'll have Yaz see if she can track him down to talk to him. Might come with her, just so she doesn't have to go alone. See if we can learn more about the knife, 'cause that seems like the kind of thing that really shouldn't be out in the general public."

"Good news: Yaz was able to find Mr. Baumgartner's address. Bad news: it's a cemetery in Bedfordshire. More good news: his daughter, Lisa, apparently inherited the house and the freaky knife, and was more than happy to let us take it. It's currently in Artifact Storage with strict instructions not to go near it without heavy gloves, and even stricter ones not to let it near food.

"Hopefully, that's enough. I'd hate for that thing to hurt more people. Though… I'm not really sure if what it did to Mr. Baumgartner can really be called  _ hurting. _ He didn't seem upset about the blood. But whatever it was, it wasn't good, that's for sure."

_ Sigh. _

"End recording."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter of this AU that is rapidly growing an actual Plot and Opinions!  
> TW: mice, centipedes, animal death, general grossness

"I think I'm being watched. This place always feels like you're being watched, but this is new. It's been getting worse ever since I started working down here. I talked to my assistants about it, and Yaz and Ryan said they'd noticed it too. Graham said he didn't, but Graham's good at ignoring the weird stuff, always has been. Made him a good sort of litmus test for creepiness in AS, 'cause if Graham said it was bad, then it was always  _ really _ bad. So, I guess whatever this is can't be too strange, if he hasn't noticed.

"Still. It feels like there's someone looking at me, every time I come down here. There aren't cameras in the archives - something about trouble getting wiring for them, I think - so I know it's not that. Maybe it's just all the quiet. When I'm in my office with the door shut, or back in the archives proper, I can't hear anyone else. Should feel like I'm all alone, but… it just seems like there's something  _ else _ here too, something keeping an eye on me. Not in a reassuring way, either.

"Ryan jokes about a buddy system, so that nobody has to go in the archives by themselves. Which might help, but it doesn't do anything about my office. Selfish of me saying that, I guess. It's not like I won't be fine. Just a little weirded out. Which isn't exactly odd around here."

_ Knock, knock. _

"Are you recording in there, boss?"

"Not yet, Graham!"

_ Gentle creak of old hinges, followed by footsteps. _

"I made tea for everyone."

"Ooh, thank you. Yeah, just set it down on the coaster, that's fine."

_ Soft thud of, presumably, a mug being set on a coaster. _

"Bit risky having it right next to your laptop, innit?"

"Haven't spilled anything yet."

_ Pointed silence. _

"Alright, alright, I'll move it over a bit. There."

"I just don't want to hear you arguing with IT again."

"Oi!"

_ Laughter. _

"Good luck recording that statement. Looked like a nasty one."

"Thanks, Graham. Oh, and tell Yaz to see if that file I gave her - the one on the anglerfish guy - turns up any leads."

"Will do."

_ Footsteps, followed by a closing door. _

"Wonder what he meant by  _ nasty. _ Oh, centipedes! Love centipedes. Used to name the ones I'd find in my bedroom. Leggy was my favorite, but she got tossed outside during spring cleaning and I never saw her again."

_ Sloshing liquid. _

"Hmm. Bit low on sugar, but not bad. I think he thought I was joking when I said I like mine with six packets. Oh well.

"Statement of Benjamin Martez, regarding a centipede infestation. Original statement given July 2nd, 2005. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ I can feel them crawling on me still. Thousands and thousands of legs, skittering and prickling all over my skin. They're in my hair, under my clothes, and you would see them if you looked. But nobody looks. Nobody can see the bites. _

_ I keep mice. Kept, I should say, since I don't exactly have any living ones left anymore. But the point still stands. I kept mice as pets. They were all nice little things, for the most part, and I took good care of them. Cleaned their bedding twice daily, fed them after that, gave them toys to play with and let them run around certain parts of my flat when I could supervise them. _

_ That's how the centipedes started. I was raising them as feeders for my mice. Mice are omnivores, you know. They don't just eat fruits and vegetables. In the wild, they'll hunt bugs and eat carrion if they can find it. So, in order to give them stimulation and protein, I would give them each a centipede every so often. Once a week, maybe. _

_ If you hadn't already guessed, I'm not a very social person. No flatmate, no siblings, no life outside of work and my mice. That suited me just fine, really. Didn't have to worry about drama or partying too late and missing work. Sometimes, if I wanted a night out, I'd go to the library. Yeah, I know. _

_ Anyways, point of all that is, there was nobody but me to notice when the latch on the centipede container broke, and I certainly didn't. Not at first. _

_ Then they started coming into my room. I would be in bed, reading, and see something crawling on the wall out of the corner of my eye, but it would be gone before I could see what it really was. For a little while, I thought I was hallucinating. _

_ Finally, I caught one in my bathroom. Just after a shower, I stepped out to see one on the mirror, calm as could be. A little dark streak of insect, standing on the top of the mirror and looking down into it. _

_ Yeah, it sounds a little crazy to say it was looking at itself in the mirror, but I  _ **_know_ ** _ that's what it was doing. It had its front half dangling down, and its little legs were against it like it knew what it was seeing in there. Most centipedes don't have eyes, but I was just so certain it understood it was looking at itself. _

_ I grabbed a bit of toilet roll, picked it up, and put it back in the container. Thought that was that. _

_ The next day was usually centipede day for the mice. After cleaning the bedding, I picked out a few of the bigger ones, plopped them in the cage for the mice, and left to go make tea. My kitchen's on the opposite end of the flat from the mouse room and there's a heavy door, so I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. _

_ Once I finished my tea, I went back to let the mice out for a little supervised playtime. They had toys, lots of climbing puzzles and some little balls they'd chase around like dogs do. I even taught Milkshake to play fetch. It was cute. I'd roll the ball across the floor and she'd scamper after it and then nudge it back to me with her nose, unless she got sidetracked by another toy. _

_ All of my mice were dead, and the centipedes were gone. There were bite marks on the mice, oozing something thick and black, like tar. I touched it, by accident, and it burned my skin. The centipedes I raised were all non-venomous, I knew that. Made sure of it. Even the biggest ones weren't any match for my mice, usually. _

_ How do you handle that? All of your pets just suddenly dead of mysterious causes, and you  _ **_know_ ** _ that it was centipedes that did it but you can't find them anywhere? _

_ In the end, I cleaned up all the bodies and put them in a garbage bag. There wasn't really anything else to do. I double bagged it all, in case the venom ate through the plastic, and put them in the bin. _

_ Then I called the landlord and said I thought we had a centipede infestation, and he arranged to have an exterminator come by in a few days. I spent a week sleeping in a hotel while the whole building was fumigated. _

_ When I came back, everything was fine for a few weeks. No sign of the centipedes. I started considering keeping fish instead of mice. Fewer live feedings. _

_ And then one day I heard a scratching in the walls. Like legs, hundreds on hundreds of little legs picking away at the wall. Whenever I went to look closer, it stopped, though. I even tried recording it to show my landlord, but they went dead silent whenever I tried that. Eventually, I got in the habit of having the tape recorder on all the time, just so they'd be quiet and I could get some sleep. _

_ A couple months after that, I started seeing black splotches on the walls. The patches were damp and burned, just like the venom that killed my mice. I took pictures and called the landlord again, but he said he didn't see anything. _

_ I knew it was there, though. Could see the patches spreading every day, growing bigger and bigger until every vertical surface in my house was mottled black and disgusting cream. I never liked the wallpaper in my flat, but this was so much worse. _

_ The skittering started up again not long after the walls became so swollen with venom that I thought touching them would make them burst like boils. Even with a tape recorder on, they would be skittering inside the drywall at all hours. I started spending more and more time at work, hoping I could avoid them. _

_ It didn't work. In mid June, about six months after my mice died, the walls burst. It happened when I was at home. One moment, I was asleep in bed, the next there was this tearing sound like wet paper and a flood of centipedes. They were everywhere, crawling all over me and all over everything else. _

_ Have you ever been climbed on by a centipede? They've got prickly legs. Not quite painful, but you feel every little footstep. And they were absolutely  _ **_everywhere_ ** _ on me. Some tried to get in my mouth, some got in my ears and nose, and I couldn't even scream because I knew if I did, they would crawl inside my mouth and down my throat. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is? _

_ And they bit. Centipedes don't just inject their venom through their mandibles like you might think. They've got two ways of doing it; mandibles and forcipules. They're both equally painful, I promise you. I could feel the bites burning, skin swelling as they bit the same spots over and over. _

_ For two days straight, I was covered in centipedes, bitten and crawled on and not able to move except to shiver. Crying only made it worse - they would bite my eyelids when I did. Guess they didn't like the chance of my tears washing away any of their venom. I ran out of tears by the end of the first day, either way. _

_ Eventually, I guess they had enough. They all disappeared, skittering back into the swollen, rotting walls and leaving me in my swollen, rotting skin. _

_ As soon as I could move, I went to a doctor. They said I'd had a nervous breakdown, and that there wasn't anything else wrong with me. Offered to put me in a mental institution for a little while. Told them I was fine, thanks, just stressed from work. Promised I'd see someone about it. That was a lie. _

_ Nobody is going to believe me if I tell them I'm dying. I can feel the venom in my blood, I can feel the legs on my skin, I can see the rot and damp walls pressing in on me. It's only a matter of time before I burst, just like the walls did. _

"Statement ends."

_ Sloshing liquid. _

"The supplemental material attached from John says that Mr. Martez died a single day later, though he appeared fine while giving the statement. No autopsy report, though. Maybe Ryan'll be able to find one. Not sure if I'll like what he finds, but… thorough research, right?"

"I really, really wish I hadn't brought up the autopsy report. Ryan did find one, but it's exactly as horrible as I feared. Mr. Martez's internal organs were, and I quote, 'completely dissolved by a black liquid of unknown origin and composition, including the heart, lungs, and intestines.' He was right about bursting.

"Yaz and Graham looked in to the building where he lived, but it was torn down a few years ago and replaced with a shopping center. No reports of issues with any insects, particularly not centipedes.

"I think that's it for today. I'm going to go home, have a nice long shower, and try not to think too hard about this one.

"End recording."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting our angst in today :)  
> TW: implied child death, though it doesn't actually happen

"Ma'am, please sit down. I'll be happy to take your statement, but you really need to stop-"

_ "I just need more lights on. I just- do you have candles? Or torches? Or-" _

"No candles in the archives. Too many flammable papers. We could record outside if that would be better?"

_ "Yes,  _ **_please,_ ** _ anywhere but here. It's too dark. Too many shadows." _

"Right. There's a courtyard just upstairs. I'll have Yaz show you up there, and then I'll be right along, okay?"

_ "I- yes. Thank you." _

"Of course. Hey Yaz?"

"Yeah?"

"Mind taking Mrs. Wellmont up to the courtyard?"

"Sure thing! If you'll follow me back upstairs, please, ma'am…"

_ Footsteps, followed by a door closing. _

_ Sigh. _

"What do you even bring to a live statement recording? Should I take notes? Would that be weird? Maybe I'll just bring her some tea. She seems like she'll need it."

"Can you say your name and reason for giving this statement again, please? Just for the records."

_ "My- my name is Noelle Wellmont, and there is… there is something underneath my son's bed." _

"Okay. Statement of Noelle Wellmont, regarding an entity beneath her son's bed. Original statement given live, March 23rd, 2016. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute. Statement begins."

_ "Should I- should I start?" _

"You can. Would it help if I asked some questions to get you on track?"

_ Shivering, unsteady inhale. _

_ "No. I- I know where to start. _

_ "Brian was born at noon on December 21st. I always thought that was a little funny, him being born at the brightest part of the shortest day of the year. My nan, though, she was always superstitious, and said it was a bad omen. I think she was right. _

_ "He's been scared of the dark ever since he was a baby. Mark - my husband - and I had to sleep with the light on when Brian still slept in our room, or else he'd cry the whole house down and none of us would get any rest. _

_ "Once he grew up enough to have his own room, we started buying him night lights every year for Christmas. One year it was a little dinosaur, one year it was a football, one year it was an octopus. He gave them names, once he started talking. The dinosaur was Terry - it was a pteranodon, or whatever those flying ones are called - and the football was Dash, and the octopus was Squish. This year's is a dog he named Spot. Mark and I told him if he did well in school, we might get him a real dog for his birthday. He's been trying so hard. _

_ "He's a good kid, I swear. Lots of friends at school, the teachers love him, he always helps clean up after dinner. Not the type to- to lie about anything important, even if sometimes he says he eats his veggies when he really hid them. Normal little kid stuff. _

_ "We had an electrical shortage two weeks ago, and the outlet we'd plugged Spot into stopped working entirely. It's been hectic at work, so Mark and I haven't had a chance to call someone in to fix it yet, so Brian just started sleeping with the door cracked. _

_ "Except, a week ago, he came to us in the middle of the night scared out of his wits, saying there was something under his bed. Mark got a torch and shined it around under there and said there wasn't anything down there, but we let Brian sleep in bed with us that night anyways. Maybe it's bad parenting, but it was one in the morning and easier to just go back to bed than try to make him sleep in his own room. _

_ "He did it again the next night, and Mark took the torch again and said he didn't see anything. He even gave it to Brian so he could see for himself, but the poor kid was too terrified to try without him there. So Mark went with him, and Brian said it had only hidden when he couldn't see it. _

_ "We figured he was just having nightmares because he wasn't used to sleeping without a night light. If we had a spare bedroom, we'd have let him sleep there until we got it fixed, but… well, you know what houses are like around here. Two bedrooms was a good find, for us and what we make. _

_ "Brian even tried sleeping in the living room one night, but he said the sofa was too lumpy. Which, heh, isn't wrong. It's an old hand-me-down from Mark's mother, and I think that thing is older than she is. _

_ "On night four, Mark told me it was my turn to look under the bed with the light. Fair enough. I grab the torch and go over to Brian's room, get on my knees, and shine it underneath his bed. _

_ "We don't have storage bins or anything under there. He's got a big enough closet we don't need to, and anyways, his bed is too close to the ground for it to really help much. So I was expecting nothing to be under there. I was… I was so wrong. _

_ "The light stopped working. No, no, that's not right. The light was absorbed by whatever was under there. I even tried it against the wall, to see if the batteries were out, but they were fine. Something under that bed, though, was cutting off the light. _

_ "I was too scared to even think about touching whatever it was. If it was real, I didn't want to know what it would do to me. I just told Brian he could sleep in our bed again, and that I believed him about the monster. _

_ "Mark told me the next morning we needed to do something, and I said that I knew. I… I didn't say that I saw something under the bed. He wouldn't have believed me if I did. I love him, but the man's a sceptic through and through. _

_ "We moved a lamp into Brian's room that day, and it seemed to be working. He didn't come wake us up in the middle of the night. Not that it mattered, since I couldn't sleep either way. I couldn't stop thinking about the shape beneath the bed. _

_ "Only it wasn't a  _ **_shape,_ ** _ really. I mean, can you say that darkness has a shape? That's what it was. Pure darkness. A shadow with nothing casting it. A complete and utter absence of light. _

_ "The next morning, Brian looked exhausted. He begged to stay home from school and said that he was too tired since he hadn't slept at all last night. He said that the lamp stopped working, that the darkness ate it up and waited for him to go to sleep so it could eat him, too. He sounded so scared. His voice was trembling and I felt so helpless to do anything. _

_ "I called in sick to work and told the school Brian wasn't feeling well. We both slept in my bed and watched his favorite movies and I promised I would sleep in his room with him with the lamp on that night. I promised I would fight off any monsters that tried to eat him. I even went out and bought extra torches and batteries, just- just in case. _

_ "Mark didn't really say anything when I told him the plan. Just that he hoped it helped Brian sleep better. I think he thought I was being a little crazy. I  _ **_felt_ ** _ a little crazy saying it to him. _

_ "At bedtime, I set up a sleeping bag on Brian's floor, put the torches within arm's reach, and told Brian to go to sleep. I couldn't, obviously, but I'd brought a book and a watch. _

_ "Two hours after bedtime - so, ten, nearly on the dot - the lamp started to flicker. I put my book down and grabbed one of the lights. I could see the shadows in the room getting thicker and darker and bigger. It felt like they were reaching for me, reaching for Brian. I turned on the torch and moved closer to the lamp and prayed to God that it was just a trick of the light. _

_ "But the shadows kept growing and stretching closer and closer. The lamp gave out around eleven, and so did the first light I'd brought. I turned on another one, and it lasted until a little before midnight. The third got me to one in the morning, and that's when I started replacing batteries. I only had one more torch, and at this rate, I knew it wouldn't last me long enough. _

_ "Luckily, the fresh batteries worked. I was sitting as close to Brian's bed as I dared, desperately putting fresh batteries in my lights, for another six hours until dawn broke. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever lived through. I'm pretty sure Brian woke up a few times, but if he did, he kept quiet. _

_ "He's still at home right now. I made Mark stay home with him while I came here. I- I hoped you might know something, or- or be able to help." _

"I could see if we have any statements similar to this, but… I'm not sure how helpful they'll be. Our, uh, survival ratio isn't wonderful for the statements like yours."

_ "What?" _

"No! No, not like that, I mean- a lot of the real statements are from living people- all of them were, obviously. Just-"

_ Deep breath. Sigh. _

"The statements and artifacts we have here that deal with situations like yours aren't really well-documented. The people who've managed to give us their statements after encounters like you had generally did what you did. Lots of lights, staying awake, and being careful. There's not much more we can do."

_ "But don't you guys- you study this, don't you?" _

"Ye- n- it's complicated. Mr. Kingsfield has non-interference rules, but I'll do my best, okay?"

_ "So what do I… do?" _

"Light keeps the darkness at bay. Obviously. Fresh batteries for torches, candles, any source of light you can get. And your husband isn't as affected, so make sure he's with your son once it gets dark.

"Beyond that, for a permanent solution, I'm afraid there's not much. From what you've said, it's linked to your son's room, so moving might be your best option."

_ "Is- is that it? Is that all you can do? Take my story and tell me to move?" _

"If I knew how to fix it for you, I would. I'm sorry. I can- I can walk you out of the Institute, if you'd like. Or send one of my assistants by to see if they find anything."

_ "No. I… I'll find my way back out. Don't bother sending anyone." _

"I really do hope your son is okay."

_ Sigh. _

"And I thought reading these was bad. I wish I could help her. I want to do  _ something. _ But I don't know enough, and even if I did, these things never end well.

"I mean… every statement I've read, every  _ real _ statement, has ended with someone dead. Just once, I want someone to come in with a real statement and  _ not _ have it end with them dying, or their best friend dying, or…

"It's been a month, and I'm sick of this job. I'm sick of not knowing enough to save people. What's the point of this place if it isn't helping anyone?"

_ A hand hitting a table. _

"End recording."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to introduce another Friend :)  
> TW: Some slight unreality

"I found more of John's stuff in my desk today. It's another one of these recording devices. I actually did some searching around on the internet to see what they are, and apparently they were a very limited-edition run of digital recorders released back in 2003. One of the first truly portable MP3 recorders, running on battery power alone. They didn't take off, obviously; apparently they were too weirdly shaped to really be fashionable.

"Personally, I think they're kind of cute. A little clunky, sure, but the light at the microphone end and the texture on the grip are nice.

"I also found today's statement on my desk. Sitting on top of it, like someone left it there. But I got here before anybody else, and I know it wasn't here last night. I even asked Yaz if she put it there, since she stayed late yesterday, but she says she didn't touch my office. Which either means that Mr. Kingsfield's gotten pettier, or someone broke into my office to leave this statement for me to read.

"Not sure which one's scarier. But I guess I might as well read it, since the file number isn't logged digitally yet. It looks pretty old, so I guess that isn't surprising.

"Statement of Randy Carink, regarding a mirror. Original statement given December 6th, 1975. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ My grandmother loved mirrors. She collected them. All kinds of sizes and shapes and colors. My favorite as a kid was the huge mirror she had in her dining room that was taller than me, and had a small tarnished patch in the shape of a butterfly on the silver frame. I loved it, and when she passed away, my grandmother left it to me. _

_ For a while, it lived in my bedroom in my flat. I was careful with it, I polished it regularly - except for that butterfly spot - and told my flatmate to leave it alone. He's not a bad guy, really, but he's more of a partier than I am, and sometimes he would come home drunk and do stupid shit. Wait, am I allowed to curse in this? _

_ Whatever. I told my flatmate not to touch it. It's kind of funny, that I was the one to break it. _

_ I was cleaning, and I'd lifted the mirror off the floor so I could sweep underneath and behind it, and as I was moving it, my hand slipped. Before I could do anything, it fell and shattered all over the floor. The frame was intact, but the glass was everywhere. I was heartbroken, of course, but there wasn't really much I could do. _

_ Replacing the glass would've been expensive, with how big the mirror was, so I ended up just keeping the frame in my bedroom. The backing wasn't real silver, but I think it was nickel or something similar, so it looked like it was. It was still pretty reflective, too, so I was actually able to keep using it as a mirror even without the glass. _

_ The… visions, I guess, started on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. I was looking in the mirror and I saw this figure standing behind me. Naturally, I turned around to see if it was really there, but my bedroom was empty. When I looked back, the figure was gone again, but the mirror wasn't showing my bedroom anymore. _

_ It looked like a long, endless hallway. The same shade of silver that the frame of the mirror was. It even had the little butterfly tarnish spot, every so often. Looking into it felt like an optical illusion, one of the ones where you try to count the legs on the elephant and realize it doesn't actually have any legs at all. _

_ I decided to leave it alone. I was already late for work thanks to missing my alarm, and I really didn't have time to worry about the mirror, too. The whole rest of the day, though, every time I looked into a mirror - any mirror - I would see that same hallway. _

_ It was dizzying. I would feel myself getting… drawn in, every time. Something inside wanted me to come in. Sometimes, I could even see what that something was. _

_ A woman, I think. As much as I could tell. Skin the same shade of silver as the hallways, dark hair that tangled and twisted around itself like one of those doodles where every line branches off into smaller and smaller lines until there's no space left on the paper. She was wearing a dress, patterned with these huge, blooming patches of color that got infinitely smaller at the edges, to the point where the pattern shouldn't have been visible. _

_ Even when I saw her through the cheap little mirror in the break room at my job, I could see every detail of her dress and her hair perfectly. My eyes were drawn into the most minute gaps between the lines, searching for an end to the shapes. I just wanted to keep looking until I'd found everything - every twist, every angle, every place where the infinitesimal lines doubled back on themselves with only atoms of space between them. _

_ Every time I saw her, though, the details changed slightly. Her dress became built of endlessly fractalling triangles instead, or her hair was all soft curves where it had been sharp edges. I couldn't keep up with it all. _

_ By the time I got home, I was exhausted. My brain was tired from all of the weird, illusion-y-ness of it. But I couldn't stop myself from looking in my grandmother's mirror again, to see if I could see the woman again. _

_ As soon as I looked, she was there, grinning at me. Her mouth wasn't quite the right size for her face when it opened, too many rows of teeth all sharp and gleaming and impossible to count. I froze. I didn't know what to do. _

_ Part of me wanted to step closer. If I did, I think I would've gone through the mirror. Even then, I knew that, and it scared me. I was intrigued, obviously, but that woman wasn't right. All those teeth, all those bleeding-sharp angles…  _

_ Before I could do anything stupid, though, my flatmate got home. Think he saved my life by shouting and asking me where the milk went. It snapped me out of whatever trance I'd been in, and I tossed a sheet over the mirror and told him we were out. _

_ I've been trying to avoid mirrors and reflective stuff ever since. Not every one always has those hallways, but  _ **_any_ ** _ one of them can. The woman isn't there all the time either, but whenever she is, I always see so many teeth. I always wonder if she can get out, or if she's waiting for me to come in. _

"Statement ends.

"There's a note attached to this one. John's handwriting, of course. 'First victim?' is all that it says. I wonder who he means - the woman, the mirror, the statement-giver… it could be any of them. He didn't even bother putting a date on it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's as old as the statement itself. From what Mabli in Records says, John worked here for over forty years.

"The mirrors sound familiar. Maybe I've seen something about it before, though I think I'd remember if I'd heard about this sort of thing."

_ Self-deprecating laughter. _

"Then again, that's what I said about the four beats from that hiking statement, and that sticky note is still all on its own on my laptop. I've been too busy to look in to it, though. Between the real statements and all the- well, the  _ normal _ ones, and trying to sort them without test recording every single one, there's just been so much to do.

"Still. I'll put the mirrors on a different sticky note. They feel important.

"Statement ends."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, the answer to one(1) question!  
> TW: offhand drug mention

"It's been six weeks since I started working down here, and the feeling of being watched has only gotten worse. That almost sounds like the start of a statement, honestly. Like I'm going to get eaten by some eye monster or something. I'm pretty sure that won't happen. Have been thinking about sneaking a cat down here, though. Just so that we have  _ something _ to blame the weirdness on that isn't actually supernatural.

"Would Mr. Kingsfield even let us keep an animal on the premises? It's not like anyone comes down here except the four of us. Even the cleaning crew won't bother, unless we ask nicely. Maybe I could explain it as pest control - there's been a lot of spiders around here recently.

"Anyways, I-"

_ Creak of hinges. _

"Oh. Hello, Mr. Kingsfield."

"Theta. I believe I've told you to call me Rassilon."

"Right. Sorry."

"No matter. I trust you're adjusting well to the archives?"

"Yeah, well enough. I was just about to record a statement."

"Good, good."

"Actually, speaking of that, did you leave a file on my desk last week?"

_ Pause. _

"No. No, I did not. I would advise that you be more thorough when locking up the archives at night. It would be quite unfortunate, were any unsavory types to be permitted within the most important part of our institute."

"Right. I'll… do that."

"Wonderful. I shall leave you to your duties."

_ Door closing. _

"Well,  _ that _ was unpleasant. I mean, he's always weird, but… If he didn't leave me that statement, then who did? Clearly, he thinks someone- what, broke in? Why break in and leave a statement about mirrors on my desk, and not do anything else?"

_ Sigh. _

"I'll worry about it after I read this one.

"Statement of Oliver Penn, regarding the death of his coworker, Samuel. Original statement given November 10th, 2002. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ It was a stupid work retreat thing. We were going to spend a week in a cabin to 'bond' and 'improve our workflow'. My old job was a real hippy-type place, lots of people with long hair who would get high on the weekends and bring in their crystals to show each other. It was actually an independent book publishing company, and since I had an English degree and nothing better to do with it, I applied for a job editing manuscripts. I didn't quite fit in, but it paid well and they let me have as many sick days as I needed, which was nice. I've always been prone to getting sick. _

_ Anyway, the retreat. It was about ten months after I started working for them, so this past August. Apparently it was a yearly thing - the head of the company owned a big cabin up in Scotland, and there were few enough of us that we could all fit. It was all paid leave, so I decided to go. _

_ It was a pretty place. Kind of secluded, on the edges of a little town I don't remember the name of. Near some big forest, too. I considered an ecology major for the longest time in school, so I was actually able to keep up when Bess - one of the publishers - was talking about the native trees. _

_ One of the activities was a paired hike, meant to help us bond with someone we wouldn't normally work with. For me, that was Samuel. He was pretty much our entire advertising team, which meant he was always busy and worked on the opposite side of the building from me, not to mention the ground floor. Editing was in the basement. We'd talked maybe twice in the ten months I'd worked there, and both times he'd tried to convince me that the American moon landing was a scam. _

_ All of the pairs had different hiking trails they were supposed to go on, and mine and Samuel's went down along this little creek before doubling back through the woods. It was pretty enough, and Samuel turned out to be good conversation once we got past the moon landing thing. We were both big Tolkien fans. _

_ We had just reached the point where we were supposed to turn around and head through the forest when the ground started to shake. I thought it was just a little earthquake, and I knew we were safer out in the open than anywhere else, so I told Samuel to stay still. That was a mistake. _

_ The ground opened up underneath him, right on the shore of the creek. Like the gaping, hungry mouth of some horrible creature. It was just a sinkhole, I know, but… it felt like it wanted to swallow him up. It felt like it wanted to swallow  _ **_me,_ ** _ too. _

_ Samuel got trapped up to his waist in the hole before the ground stopped shaking, and I tried to pull him out. He kept saying it hurt, that he thought his feet were stuck, that the hole was closing in on him. I kept pulling, but I couldn't get a good angle on it, and I couldn't free him. _

_ It must have been half an hour before I finally gave up and told him I would go back to the cabin and get help. He begged me not to leave him, and said that he was so scared that if I left, the ground would envelope him. _

_ I didn't listen. I told him I'd be right back - the hikes were only about three kilometers long, and we were less than halfway through ours when the earthquake hit. It only took me ten minutes to reach the cabin at a jog. At that point, one of the other pairs - Jim from editing and Bess - had gotten back, and I told them what happened. We grabbed some rope and a spade, sent Bess to call for help, and then went back to find Samuel. _

_ By the time we got to the creek, it was too late. I could see the bare patch of earth where the sinkhole had been, but there was no sign of Samuel. I grabbed the spade and tried to dig up the dirt, but it… resisted. I would plunge the spade into the earth, and it would go in deep, but when I tried to lever it out of place it would solidify into rock until I couldn't do anything but pull the spade back out, dirtless. It was mocking me. _

_ After a few tries, I gave the spade to Jim to let him try. He didn't have any more luck. I swear when he tried to dig, I could hear something just beneath the dirt  _ **_screaming,_ ** _ muffled by earth. _

_ Eventually, the emergency services showed up. We pointed them to where the sinkhole had been and I told them what happened, but they couldn't really do anything. They asked me if I'd had any mind-altering substances - I think they were used to stupid calls from my coworkers. _

_ But I know what I saw was real. And I know it was my fault for not staying with Samuel. At least then he'd have had someone with him when… when the sinkhole ate him. _

_ I quit when we got back from the cabin, which was cut short anyway because of that. I said I couldn't bear working in the same place he did after that, but really… I could still hear him screaming sometimes, when I was in the basement. Shouting for help, begging me to stay and not leave him alone. _

_ I work at a better publishing company, now, one that's professional and in a fancy high-rise building. No basement - or if they have one, I'm never going to go down there. Even being in here, giving my statement like this, I can hear him. _

"Statement ends.

"Another death. Another person I can't help. Another horrible thing that I can't even understand properly because I don't know enough."

_ Sigh. _

"What else is new?

"I'll have Ryan see if he can find anything on Mr. Penn and his former employers, but I doubt it'll be any use. It almost never is.

"And I think I might stay later than normal tonight. I can poke around the archives after work and finally look in to those four beats I keep meaning to learn more about. Plus, I'll lock up the archives myself when I leave. Just in case. Between being watched and whatever Mr. Kingsfield's comment was supposed to mean… I don't think a little extra security will hurt.

"Maybe I will get a cat."

"Just like I thought, the extra research led nowhere. Mr. Penn now works at Penguin Random House as a manuscript editor, and did not respond to our request for a follow-up statement. His former employers, Sunstone Publishing, have since gone bankrupt.

"I'm definitely staying tonight, though. Once I'm done with this, I'm going to see if I can find a few statements that look promising, and then I'll grab them from the archives. Maybe do a little more research through the Institute databases.

"End Recording."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a statement, so I don't think this needs any TWs, but please tell me if you think otherwise! I want this fic to be enjoyable-creepy, not triggering-creepy

"Right. I probably don't need to be recording this, since it's not a statement and not technically on work time, but it's nice to have someone to talk to. So, you're coming with me on this little research trip.

"Everybody else has already gone home. Yaz was the last to leave, and she told me if she saw me with bags under my eyes tomorrow she would be making me take a nap in my office. I don't plan on being here  _ that _ late, so that shouldn't be an issue. I hope.

"I'm locking up my office now, and then I'm going to head into the archives proper. I've got two torches and some spare batteries in my coat, just in case. Don't want to get lost in there, and that's a very real risk. We lost Graham for three hours last week when he went looking for a specific file.

"I looked through our reference documents for anything more about the four beats, or about other people who died under similar circumstances to Mrs. Rawlins. No luck with the first, but I did find the file numbers for a few that looked promising in the 'ravaged by unidentified animals' category. Numbers 9780302, 9832104, and 0003007.

"I think that's last three digits of the year, then the day, then the month, which is an… interesting system. But then again, those three are just the ones that have been at least referenced in the documentation, which only goes back to when John started working as head archivist. He started the digital archive, too. But a lot of the older statements - and I know we've got some as far back as the 18th century - are still just floating around the archives, waiting to be organized properly.

"Hopefully I'll be able to fix that. Eventually. Right now, we're still catching up on John's backlog, honestly. There were a lot that he didn't file properly, starting around the turn of the century. I guess he was getting too busy to handle them all, and then when Clara quit... 

"Actually, speaking of his old assistants, what ever happened to Bill? I know Nardole transferred to the Usher Foundation, but Bill just sort of disappeared. I thought when I stopped seeing her in the break room that she'd just been busy, but when Mr. Kingsfield promoted me, he said I'd need three new assistants. Never made any mention of Bill.

"I hope she's okay. She was sweet. I actually ran into her at a pride event two years ago, and we ended up buying each other little pins. I got her a smiley-face-shaped one in lesbian colors, and she got me a ghost in nonbinary colors. I still have it on my dresser. Keep meaning to actually wear it, but I don't want to lose it. Especially now that she's… wherever she is.

"I'm at the door to the archives, now. Turning on my first torch, just to be safe. Assuming everything's where it should be - which is a big assumption - then the files shouldn't be too far back. Not compared to the really old ones, at least.

"Every time, it surprises me how many filing cabinets there are. Just… rows and rows of them, like shelves in a library. And of course, all the files that aren't where they should be, since we're trying to reorganize everything and don't really have enough space. I'm trying not to knock them over. Graham's got a system, I think. That pile's all the stuff from 2015, that pile's 2014, that stack is all the prank ones we get on Halloween every year. I know it sounds a little weird that that'd earn its own pile, but trust me. There's a  _ lot. _

"I think I'll try to find the one from 1978 first. It should be the farthest back, and then I can grab the other two on my way back out. Feels more productive that way.

"There's 1999, there's 1997… someone skipped 1998, I guess. Slow year, maybe. Or the cabinet got moved, and it's over with the 2000s. Wouldn't be the first time. Oh, nope, here it is, next to 1995.

"Break in the cabinets for some Artifact Storage reports. Huh. That's one of mine. The one Kovarian that looked like a copy of a tax law volume from 1943, but actually made the reader see endless iterations of irrational fractal numbers everywhere instead of colors. That took  _ forever _ to wear off.

"And we're back to the years, but now we're at 1985. Guess we don't get to know where 1993 through 1986 went. Least I'm closer to '78 now. And there's '83, for when I come back to grab the second statement. '80, '79… Unless someone moved it, it should be right… here! Hah! Second drawer from the top for February, 1978."

_ Squeal of rusted, uncooperative metal. _

"Third, third, third, looking for February third. Come on, little file, where'd you go? Sixth, fifth, two statements for the fourth, third! Nope, wrong one. That's 9780302-1. Guess I need 9780302-0. Ah, here we go.

"Statement of William Becker, regarding a dead deer found while stalking. Sounds about right.

"Now I just need-  _ what was that?" _

_ Long, tense pause, broken only by quiet breathing. _

"Okay. Hopefully that was just my imagination, because I just saw something with very big eyes and  _ very _ shiny teeth staring at me from down the corridor. Well, I didn't really see it, but I saw the reflection of my torch off of various… bits. Big, toothy,  _ definitely not human bits." _

_ Deep breath. _

"I'm- I'm going to take this file, and I'm going to come back and get the other two later, and I am going to lock the door when I leave. If whatever you are that's in here can hear me, I'm just going to warn you that eating me is a bad idea. People will notice. So, I think it'll be best for both of us if you let me leave, and make yourself known in a more civil manner, okay? I have office hours."

_ Pause. _

"Right. I'll be going then. I'm going to turn around and walk out of here, and if I hear  _ anything _ suspicious behind me, I'll inform Mr. Kingsfield."

_ Footsteps. Steady, but hurried. _

_ The opening, closing, and locking of a heavy door. _

"That was… terrifying. I think my heart is still pounding. I don't know what it was that I saw back there, but I don't think it was human. Not completely, anyway. The eyes were at about head height, but they weren't the right size, and those  _ teeth… _ If I didn't know better, I'd almost say it looked like a werewolf or something.

"Maybe it was just something that should have been in Artifact Storage that got put in the archives by accident. I know we used to have some weird wolf masks in there. Whatever it is, next time, I'll be better prepared for it."

_ Deep breath. _

"I'm gonna head back to my office, drop this statement off, and go home. I'll probably record the statement tomorrow, even though I did one today, just to get it uploaded while I'm researching anyways.

"I guess I don't actually have to say this, since it's not an official statement, but… End recording."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This now comes with [art](https://raindropsonwhiskers.tumblr.com/post/641595494716637184/i-wrote-a-scene-in-the-seventh-chapter-of-happy), because I really felt like one particular part needed visuals...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: body horror (though not of a human), somewhat graphic depictions of violence/injuries, discussed animal death

"I know it's a little unusual to record two statements right after each other, but after last night, I think it's best if I record this one as soon as possible. It might be a lead on whatever that thing was.

"I told my assistants what I did, and they all nearly tore my head off about it. Yaz said I should have told her what I was planning, Ryan said I should have brought someone, and Graham said I probably shouldn't have done it at night, period.

"They aren't… wrong, I suppose. Maybe if I'd had someone else there, whatever it was in there wouldn't have come so close. Or maybe it would have been more aggressive and killed them. Either way, I am now officially banned from the archives at night, by collective order of my own assistants."

_ Laughter. _

"Apparently the fact that I'm supposed to be the head archivist means nothing to them. That's fine, though. I wasn't planning on going that deep in again without more information, and maybe some back up. And I've warned them all not to go too far either.

"And now, the statement I may have risked life and limb to get!

"Statement of William Becker, regarding a dead deer found while stalking. Original statement given February 3rd, 1978. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I've been stalking deer for years, now. Officially, since 1956, though my pa used to take me with him long before that. I got real good at it, too. Could get close enough to touch them before they knew I was even there. _

_ Last year was a good year for stalking. The deer population needed decreasing, so we were allowed to shoot more does. I myself got five, plus a stag. We've still got the meat in the freezer at home, and we've been having venison for months now. _

_ I was out by myself when I saw it, on the last day I would go stalking that year. It was early in the morning in December, cold as can be and twice as dark. All I had was the moon to see by, while I waited for some deer to pass by. _

_ And, eventually, one did. That was the first odd thing - you almost never see just one deer. There's always two or three at least, all moving together. But this one was all by itself. _

_ It was stumbling, when it came through the brush. That's the second odd thing. Deer can be clumsy, sometimes, if they're scared, but they're usually quite graceful. Not this one, though; it must have barely been picking up its feet, to be crashing around like it was. Snapping twigs and tripping over roots, making so much noise that in the dark, I thought it was some kid that got lost. _

_ As it stumbled its way toward me, I readied my rifle. By that point, I could see it was a deer, and clearly not a healthy one, which meant it would be better for me to shoot it. Even if I couldn't eat it, it would make for a healthier population the next year. _

_ Then, in the moonlight, I saw the deer freeze dead still, turn its head, and look straight at me. I was well hidden, I was sure of it, but that thing knew exactly where I was. And that's the third odd thing. Deer are prey creatures. They don't like looking at things head-on like other animals will. They look at you out of the corner of their eyes, or they'll turn their heads to the side, but they won't stare you down like a person will. But as this deer looked me dead in the eyes, I knew there was something wrong with it. If nothing else had been a hint, this was. _

_ Its eyes were yellow, reflective like a cat's. I could see dark patches under them, too, like blood on its matted fur. It didn't have antlers, but it had spiky little horns, pushing out of its skull just between the ears. _

_ Soon as it looked at me like that, I pulled the trigger. My finger just pressed down without me telling it to, but I didn't regret it. I was frightened, I'm not ashamed to admit it. There was something horribly wrong about that deer, and I knew killing it was the right thing to do. _

_ My shot hit it. I saw it jolt from the impact as the bullet struck it in the chest, but it didn't move aside from that. It just kept staring at me, those eyes glinting in the moonlight. I fired again, and again, but the deer didn't so much as flinch. _

_ After a moment, once the gunshots stopped echoing so loud in my ears, I pulled out my hunting knife and stepped closer to the thing. I didn't even bother being stealthy - it clearly knew I was there, and it didn't care. _

_ The deer let me get close enough I could have pet it, if I'd been brave - or stupid - enough to touch the thick, sticky darkness underneath its eyes, or the jagged horns. Instead, I slit its throat. It was a good, clean cut, right through the arteries. _

_ But the deer stayed standing, staring at me as blood made its fur even more matted. Almost taunting me, or asking me why I was still trying. Why I still hurt it, when I knew it would do nothing. Why I still lived, when I knew it would come to nothing. _

_ I tried slitting its throat again, higher. The same result. I couldn't even tell if the deer was breathing, and I was so close I could see my own breath fogging up at it. For all that mattered, it may as well have been a corpse, stuck upright. But it blinked. Every so often, looking right into my eyes, the deer would blink. _

_ I couldn't tell you how long I stayed like that, my knife at its throat, trying to convince myself to try again. The only way to tell time was by the deer's erratic blinking and the slow growth of sunlight as dawn began to break. _

_ All I could think, the entire time I stood there, was that this was an omen. A sign of something, some representation of my own mistakes. The universe's revenge for a deer I had killed too cruelly, or too slowly, or that I had wasted the meat of. Or perhaps a sign that life was not, in the end, so different from death. _

_ After all, what made this deer so clearly  _ **_dead_ ** _ rather than alive? The glassy, yellow-eyed stare? The way its blood oozed from wounds, instead of gushing like a living thing's should? The countless other injuries that were scattered across it; gunshot wounds, knife wounds, arrow wounds, bite marks and skin hanging from greying flesh in strips and a leg bent at a horrifying angle? What gave it any less right to be considered alive than I had? _

_ When sunlight came - when I could make out the gaping wounds that covered the deer's coat from hooves to head in stomach-turning color - the deer left. It blinked at me one more time, and then stumbled off into the trees. The spell broken, I gathered my things and headed home. There was nothing else to do, really. _

_ Of course I didn't go out again. How could I, when I dreaded the thought of seeing that deer again? Just the nightmares I've had of it have been bad enough to wake me in a cold sweat. Every night, I just see its horrible, disfigured body, and wonder what it sees when it looks at me. A living corpse, no better than itself? _

"Statement ends.

"Well, this wasn't what I was hoping for. No mention of four beats, and the deer, as creepy as it sounds, doesn't fit the vibe of the killings on the hiking trail. This one's way more… existential, I guess you'd call it.

"Still, it's interesting. I wonder if Mr. Becker ever took up stalking again after this, and if anyone else has seen the deer.

"I'm a little worn out now, honestly. Two real statements, one day after the other, wasn't the best idea. Might have to listen to Yaz and take that nap at some point today."

"Post-nap and research addendum. The nap was good, even though the cot in the storage room isn't very comfortable. The research was even better, though, because Ryan found not one but  _ fifteen _ separate reports of similar encounters over the years online!

"They're spread pretty evenly out, with the oldest in 2004 as a screenshot of a forum post from some time in the early '90s, and the newest one just last year, in November 2015. All of them mention similar circumstances to Mr. Becker - the late night or early morning hunting, the stumbling deer, even the sort of dread that he described - though they're not localized to just the UK. Ten are from America, two are from Canada, one is from Russia, and the remaining two are from Scotland and England. We're trying to contact some of the more recent victims. Hopefully they'll have pictures or some more information.

"Until someone gets back to us, though, I think this is as far as we'll get on this statement.

"End recording."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Heights, falling

"I might have started looking at cats up for adoption in the London area. Not for here, uh, obviously, because according to the rather passive-aggressive memo Mr. Kingsfield sent out three days ago when I started looking, they're an allergen risk and strictly prohibited on the premises as such. But I still figured, you know, since I got my own flat, I've been kind of lonely. And I've never actually had a cat before.

"So far, I'm thinking about adopting the  _ beautiful _ calico named Idris. Apparently she's super sweet, and I've actually got an appointment with the shelter this Saturday to see if we get along. I hope we do. I always wanted a cat as a kid, but group foster homes aren't really conducive to keeping pets, and-"

_ Knock, knock. _

"Theta? Have you started recording yet?"

"Nah, come on in, Ryan. What do you need?"

_ Gentle creak of old hinges. _

"Yaz and I finished sorting these statements, so I've got a few that sounded promising and didn't record right. Also, one of the people from the deer statement responded to our request for more information, and apparently he has actual pictures of it that he can send us. I forwarded the email to you."

"Ryan, you are amazing. I'll check that soon as I'm done recording this statement. You can just set the new files down on that pile over there."

"The pile with the blue sticky note, or the pile with the pink sticky note?"

"Uh, blue for now. That's the less urgent statements. Wait, do any of them mention mirrors or animal attacks?"

"Nope. We've got, uh, two different Kovarian statements, plus one about bathtub mold."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Eugh. Definitely blue sticky note pile for them, then. The longer I can put off reading about murderous bathtub mold, the better."

_ Laughter. _

"Don't blame you. Still sounds better than sorting out the statements from teenagers about a cursed classroom that's like,  _ totally _ haunted."

"Well, 'tis not for us to decide who reads the mold statements and who reads the ones about haunted gym lockers. Speaking of…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Important head archivist business. I'm going."

_ Door closing. _

_ A fond sigh. _

"Statement of Claudia Martel, regarding a kayaking trip. Original statement given October 3rd, 2013. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute. Statement begins."

_ I moved to Bath in 2000, from Roanoke, Virginia. My husband, James, grew up there, and he said that he wanted to raise our daughter there, too. I was never all that attached to Roanoke, so it was an easy move. My parents were mad at me, but I do not particularly care what they think these days. _

_ Kayaking is one of those things that I've always wanted to do, but never actually found the time for until I moved. There's kayaking tours of the River Avon that are actually pretty fun, and that's how I started. Then, when James' programming company took off, he was making enough that I could be a stay at home mom instead of working an absolutely soulless customer service job at a hotel. But once Zoe got old enough to start school, I got bored and actually got certified to give kayaking tours myself. _

_ I had a spiel I would give, and I would answer questions, but I was really just in it for the regular exercise and the beautiful architecture and nature. It never got old, seeing those huge, picturesque buildings and the rolling hills as I glided by on the water. Showing other people around and getting paid for it were just nice little bonuses. _

_ I think it was a Thursday when it happened. I had dropped Zoe off at school in the morning, spent a few hours at home reading, and then went out to do my first of two tours for the day - noon, and then 4:00. I checked the group in. I think they were a family, since there were four kids and the two women wrangling them looked nearly identical. We went through the life jacket and kayak selection song and dance, and fifteen minutes later, we were actually getting in the water. _

_ The tours went downstream, and then at the end there'd be a bus that would pick everyone up and take them back to the start. A separate truck would get the kayaks and the instructor, which I was just fine with. On the kayaks, people were usually quiet, but they tended to be a lot louder on the bus back. _

_ We were about halfway through the route when everything started to fall away. The river grew wider and wider, until suddenly, I could not see anything but endless water. There was still a current, pushing me gently onward, but I could not find any of the tourists or, well, anything else. Just miles and miles of water, as far as I could see. _

_ Above me, the sky was sprawling and cloudless, and though there was no sun in sight, it was a bright, cheerful blue. Almost the same shade as the water had become. I started to have trouble telling where the horizon was, whether there was anything separating one infinite stretch of blue from the other. For all I knew, I could have been floating in the sky, pushed along by wind. Even when I dipped my hand into the water, it felt the same as the air. _

_ It was almost peaceful, for a moment. Just me and the endless expanse of blue. Like floating in a pool on a warm summer day, staring up at the sky and certain that nothing can go wrong. _

_ And then everything twisted. Gravity reversed itself, and suddenly I was falling out of my kayak, plummeting towards the sky - or the water. I couldn't tell which one, but I knew that either way, the impact would be deadly. _

_ I screamed and screamed, but I could barely hear myself over the rush of air - or was it water? - and I knew there was no one around to help. I fell faster and faster towards an inevitable death, unable to do anything but scream hopelessly as I did. The cold air and freezing water bit at my bare skin, tore at my clothing, seemed to taunt me as I just kept falling. Whatever end I was growing ever closer to, I couldn't see it on the rare occasions I managed to open my eyes. All I saw was more vast, incomprehensible blue. _

_ And it was truly incomprehensible. How do you describe something so infinitely large as the sky itself, or the masses of water in an ocean? The human mind just isn't built to understand such concepts, and as I fell, I began to realize why. If we truly understood how huge the sky was, or were able to visualize the scale of the planet we live on, our minds would break. We would crumple in despair at knowing how insurmountable they are. _

_ There are more gallons of water in our seas than humans that have lived on this planet. There are places within the ocean so deep they could swallow up Mount Everest and it would not make a dent in their depth. We have reached space, and yet cannot plumb the full extent of our own planet's oceans lest the pressure and darkness and vastness of it all destroy our meagre technology. _

_ All those words, and yet they do not capture the true endlessness of it all. Nothing can, not even the endless freefall that I experienced. However long I fell for, however many hours passed before my voice went raw and my heart could not beat any faster and I stopped doing anything but being so deeply  _ **_afraid,_ ** _ it has nothing on the infinitude of the ocean. _

_ Eventually, as all paltry human experiences must, it ended. I was screaming and falling in one moment, and seated safely in my kayak the next. For the tourists, it might as well have not happened. It was as though they were operating on some greater timescale than my own, and yet unknowing of the revelations I had just ascended to. _

_ Even as I write this, I know that you will not understand when you read it. You have not lived through what I have, have not seen the true limitlessness of the water. Perhaps you should try kayaking, some time. I still give tours. _

"Statement ends.

"I feel a little… dizzy, now. Something about that mental image of what she described felt very vivid. I've noticed that, with some of the statements. Reading them out loud always makes them feel so  _ real, _ like I'm there with them. I'm not sure I like it.

"It might be nice to get a follow up statement from Mrs. Martel, if we can find her. She seems like she'd be an interesting person to talk to."

"Ryan, unfortunately, wasn't able to find any trace of Mrs. Martel. It's unclear whether she's still alive, but she disappeared one month after delivering her statement. Her husband claims that she was kidnapped by an older man, but he doesn't have any evidence to support this.

"Before her disappearance, though, there were two reports of deaths by drowning in the River Avon within the month of October, neither ruled as suicides. One victim was Marylin Kerr, and the other was…  _ oh. _ That's interesting. One Cameron Baumgartner, who I'm willing to bet was the son of Zachary Baumgartner. I need to look into that."

"Okay, back again! Did some Googling, and I was right. Cameron Baumgartner, born 1980 to Zachary and Enora Baumgartner, was found dead in the River Avon on October 24th, 2013. That's very interesting indeed. I'm going to add that to a new sticky note. Something to look in to when I have the time.

"End recording."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're bad with names: Zachary Baumgartner is the man from the second statement, involving the boning knife and the mango


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Death of a parent (mentioned, happened by heart attack)

"Update! I went to the shelter on Saturday, and I am proud to announce that I now have a cat! Yaz and Ryan and Graham have made me send them so many pictures of her. I'm pretty sure I saw that Yaz framed one of them on her desk. Might have to do the same, if I can find space on here.

"I've never had a cat before, so it's all kind of new to me. Good new, though. It took Idris a few days to adjust to my flat, but she's really taken to it. I bought her a bed that she hasn't used once, since she seems to prefer mine. Which is fine - great, even! It's nice not to sleep alone, even if she takes up half the bed, somehow. Nice to have someone to talk to, too. And she's chatty, so it really feels like we're having conversations. It's… nice. It's really, really nice.

"Anyways, I should probably record a proper statement, instead of just talking about my cat. Right, let's see… Well, I'd like to take one off the pink sticky note pile, but as that's just ones I've already read right now, I guess I'll do one of the Kovarian statements."

_ Thump of files being moved. _

"Statement of Winnifred Gesford, regarding a book inherited from her father. Original statement given June 19th, 2008. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London. Statement begins."

_ I feel like I should preface this by saying that my dad wasn't an angry man. He was a football coach, sure, but he was the one who taught me how to knit, too. When I was a little kid, he would read me bedtime stories. Every night, as many as I wanted. I think he was kind of trying to compensate, once my mum died. But he was a good man, and a good father. _

_ When he died last year, I was devastated. I'd moved out to go to uni, and he died of a heart attack, so I wasn't even able to get there to see him before he passed away. It was awful, riding the train back home and knowing the house would be so empty when I got there. Even the dogs weren't there, because my aunt was watching them. I unlocked the door, and all that greeted me was silence. _

_ Then there was the funeral - I was lucky, my aunt arranged that so that I didn't have to - and the will had to be taken care of, and somehow by the end of the week I had a whole house of stuff I didn't know what to do with. I knew I didn't want to get rid of any of it, and some of it was meant for my aunt to have, but I didn't even know where to start. Going through your dead father's belongings is a bit different from spring cleaning, you know? _

_ In the end, I started with the bookshelf. He had so many books, all different genres and ages, and I knew I wouldn't want to keep all of them. So I started by trying to sort them; keep because I wanted them, keep because I couldn't bear to get rid of them, and donate or sell. _

_ That's when I found the book. It had a red cover, and was sandwiched between his copy of Moby Dick and a book of poetry. There wasn't a title on the outside, but the inside of the front cover had a little plaque. "From the Library of Madame Kovarian". The title page said it was just called Rage. No author. _

_ I didn't read it, at first. It looked old, so I actually tried looking it up, to see if it was worth anything. I looked up Madame Kovarian, too. Apparently she was some French lady who had this big library in the 70s, but it burned down and a lot of her books were lost. Her collection is supposed to be really valuable, at least to certain buyers. _

_ So, I contacted one of the suspicious people on the internet who wanted to buy her books, someone with the username River. Look. I'm a university student, and I knew I was probably going to need the money. And this person had  _ **_ridiculously_ ** _ high offers, too. 5000 pounds per book high. It was a risk I was willing to take. _

_ When I was done sorting books for the day, I still hadn't gotten a reply, and the book intrigued me, so I took it to my bedroom to give it a read. The pages were thin, but it didn't feel fragile as I held it. I flipped it open to the first page and began to read. _

_ Except it wasn't words, at least not in English. The symbols were jagged, made of straight, sharp lines in red ink. It looked hand drawn, not printed. There were little blots of ink on some of the pages, and they looked a bit like bloodstains. More than a bit, really. _

_ As I flipped through the pages, the symbols began to look more and more like words. One word, over and over again, in different sizes and thicknesses of the ink, filling each page. Rage. _

_ I could feel myself getting angry. Angry at my dad for dying, angry at the university for making it so I couldn't see him when he died, angry at my aunt for not doing more, angry at the whole terrible world. Angry at myself, too. It was just so easy to ignore everything else and get  _ **_furious._ **

_ Eventually, it got late enough I knew I should go to sleep. I didn't want to - I wanted to do something stupid and destructive. To take a knife and just see what happened. It was so tempting. But as I was getting up to - well, I honestly can't say what I was going to do, but I know it wouldn't have ended well - my phone rang. My aunt. _

_ I almost didn't answer. I was so mad at her for not helping more when my mom died, and for not helping me more now, and all sorts of stuff. But I couldn't just let the phone ring out. So I answered. _

_ She asked me how I was doing, if I wanted her to bring over some Hawaiian pizza for a movie night. That was our thing, when I was a kid. We'd eat Hawaiian pizza on the floor of her living room and watch whatever movie I wanted, and I would usually fall asleep like that. That's what broke the spell, for me. Those happy memories just… chased away all that anger. They reminded me that she had just lost her brother, and that she probably wasn't doing that great either. I told her that I would love that, and stuck the book in my bedside drawer so I wouldn't see it again. _

_ The next day, I got a response from the person I contacted about selling the book to. They said they'd meet me at one of the local parks at noon. Honestly, the whole thing felt a bit like a drug deal. A clandestine meeting at a specific park bench to exchange mysterious goods for an insane amount of money. _

_ I showed up fifteen minutes early and waited on the bench. The book was in a paper bag, just to lessen the temptation to read it again. _

_ Fifteen minutes later on the dot, a woman sat down next to me. The first thing I noticed about her was her hair. She had a  _ **_lot_ ** _ of it, all curly and blonde. Even pulled back like it was, there was still so much of it. And she was really, really pretty, in a slightly severe way. Her eyes were very intense. _

_ "Are you here for the book?" I asked, and she said yes. _

_ I handed her the bag, and she opened it and checked that the book had the plaque. Then she handed me a duffel bag, which only made it feel more like a drug deal. _

_ "Most people don't trust checks," she explained. Which, I guess that makes sense. _

_ "What are you going to do with it?" I asked, once I'd opened the bag and made sure there was at least some money in there. _

_ She grinned. "I'm going to burn it." _

_ "Good," I said. _

_ "Want to watch?" she offered. _

_ I really did consider it. It might have been fun to watch it burn. But I'd had enough of that book for a whole lifetime, so I told her no. She sort of nodded, said she understood, and stood up to leave. I went the opposite direction a few minutes later, and made a beeline home. Once I got there, I counted all the money. It really was 5000 pounds, in lots of different denominations. I put most of it in a savings account. _

_ That's… kind of where it ends. Really, the only reason I'm even coming here is because I saw your website when I Googled Madame Kovarian. I kept meaning to come and give a statement, but I've only just had the time. I hope it's some help, whatever you need it for. _

"Statement ends.

"It's nice to have one with a happy ending for once. No idea who that woman was, though… We've got quite a few Kovarians in AS, but I don't think I've ever heard of someone with a history of burning them. Yet another to add to the mystery sticky note line, I suppose. She'll fit right in with the others.

"Still, if some uni student could find her, she can't be that well-hidden. Maybe I'll be able to track her down and have a chat."

"I found a forum post by someone going by River pretty quickly, but I couldn't find any more information on her. An email address that's not connected to anything except a few different accounts on book collecting and supernatural encounter forums, all of which only respond to questions about books that are clearly Kovarians. There's a few people thanking her for taking the books off their hands, too.

"I haven't contacted her yet. She seems just a little… intimidating. And I doubt she'd be willing to meet with me unless I had something to offer in exchange, and chances of me persuading Mr. Kingsfield to let me give one of our artifacts away to a lady who wants to destroy it range from about zero to none.

"In better news, Yaz says that Ms. Gesford seems to be doing well, according to her Instagram account that she found. I think this time, we actually got one with a good ending. No suspicious death, no disappearance… It's a pleasant change.

"End recording."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're over halfway through this fic! I honestly can't believe it  
> TW: Fire

"We finally got those pictures from the person who encountered that weird deer. Took two weeks, because he actually had to send us print-outs of the original photos, instead of the digital files. Apparently, there were issues with data corruption. A lot like what happened when we tried to record real statements on the laptops, actually.

"Anyways. They're  _ very _ creepy. Very dark, too, but in the ones you can make the body of the deer out in, it's just like Mr. Becker described. The glowing yellow eyes, the horns. There's even what looks like knife wounds on its neck in one photo, presumably from when it encountered Mr. Becker.

"The person who sent us the photos declined to give their statement or name, which is both understandable and frustrating. Either way, though, the pictures have been added to the file for Mr. Becker's statement. It's rare that we get such good, concrete proof for statements. Not that I really doubted he was telling the truth, but it's always useful to have more than one source.

"Speaking of more than one source, I found evidence of several other attacks that match Ms. Hawkins' statement. Back in the late nineties, there was a string of deaths on various hiking trails in the Peak District National Park. There were actually fifteen people reported missing, but only ten bodies were ever found. No common trend as to the identities of the victims - race, gender, age - but all ten deaths were ruled as animal-related because of the nature of their wounds.

"This is the same creature, I just know it. There's got to be more attacks between then and 2014, but they must have happened somewhere else. I'm actually looking at American hiking deaths in my free time, but there's so many to sift through that are legitimate animal attacks, it's impossible to tell which ones aren't. Well. Not impossible, but really, really tedious.

"I'll figure it out, though. I have to. If whatever did this is still on the loose, then maybe I can stop it, or at least do  _ something _ to help save more people."

_ Sigh. _

"But that's got to wait, because I have to read a statement today, which is what these recordings are really for. If you're listening to this in the future, sorry. But I promise, this is a good one.

"Statement of Catheryn Burroughs, regarding the destruction of her house. Original statement given in a letter to a friend, written in 1893 and obtained by the Institute in 1920. Exact days unknown. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ My dearest Eliza, _

_ I am writing to you from Theodore's home. As yet, the repairs on the house are still in early stages, so we have, unfortunately, been forced to impose upon his hospitality longer than I would perhaps prefer. He has been a thoroughly gracious host, of course, and I do not mean any insult upon his home, but there comes a time in a woman's life when she expects to outgrow sharing the dining table with her younger brother. _

_ Nevertheless, that is not why I have written to you — at least, not entirely. Foremost, I must congratulate you on the birth of your son! By the time this letter arrives, I do hope he has settled over the night, and that he shall sleep easier. Perhaps when we are nearer once more, I may visit, and see him in person. _

_ However, there has been a matter troubling me that I wish for your assistance on. As you know, I suspect that the fire which so thoroughly desolated my home was not entirely of earthly nature. I even called upon a priest to see if there were signs of anything… demonic, within the grounds. He claimed not to have detected anything, but — and forgive me for saying this so plainly — I do not fully trust his words. There is no purely natural fire that burns hot enough to reduce even the stone foundations that supported the house to ash. _

_ My conviction has only been strengthened by recent events. My sleep has never been the most peaceful, but recently, it has become far worse. I awake nightly, feeling the heat of such horrible flames upon my face that they force me to awareness. Just last night, I was dreaming of the forest where we used to play as girls, when I imagined it gone up in flames. The fire crept ever closer to me, until it felt as though it would burn my skin. I awoke to find my face far warmer than it ought to have been, particularly given the winter's chill. _

_ But that is not what drove me to write to you. As I lay in bed, waiting for sleep to take me once more, I saw a figure. An apparition, it could be called. I could not make out its features, but it stood in my chambers, very near to this desk where I now write. It was all in shades of blue, and translucent much like stained glass. _

_ I was so troubled by this that I could not fall back to sleep, but I could not find the courage to stand from where I lay. Thus, I was forced to remain awake in my bed, staring at the ghostly apparition. _

_ After quite a long time, it began to move. The edges of its form flickered as though it were made of fire, and as it approached me, I began to feel an unnatural warmth radiating from it. I could see what I took to be its face, then; two eyes of glowing white and orange, like coals fresh from a hearth, and the suggestion of a nose and mouth in a blue brighter than the rest of its ghostly flesh. _

_ I could not scream, even as it drew so close that the heat it brought with it grew to be unbearable. It came near enough that, had I been able to move, I could have touched it. I did not have to do so to know that such an action would have left me with a burnt hand — just being in such near proximity has left my skin reddened and tender as though I spent too long in the sun. _

_ For a span of time that I was entirely too terrified to count, the figure stood there. Its glowing eyes did not meet my own, but instead focused on Quincy. My husband slept, unknowing of the demon that had fixed its gaze upon him, but I could not do the same. _

_ There came a point, at some time during this horrid encounter, when I became aware that it was this creature that was at fault for the destruction of our home. It said nothing, did nothing more than stare at Quincy, but once the knowledge came to me, it would not leave. Whatever manner of beast this was, whatever grudge it held against my husband, it had chosen to levy its power for the purpose of destroying his life. Our house was merely to be the first. _

_ As I lay there, still trapped by fear, I wondered if the creature would destroy me, as well. It could have, had it chosen to. One touch, and I am certain I would not be writing this to you and that you would instead receive the knowledge of my death. I say this not to be morbid — you know I cannot stand such flights of fancy as to the nature of death — but merely out of the unwavering surety that it is the truth. And yet, though the figure could have done so, it did not come any closer, neither to me nor my husband. _

_ Perhaps it was merely meant as a warning. Perhaps it was an accident that I became aware of the creature. Perhaps it is all in my own head, and I simply am in need of a doctor. Despite the clarity of feeling that struck me as I lay awake, in the daylight, it has all become far muddier. That is why I write to you, in hopes that you will be better able to determine whether I am mad. After so many years of companionship, I hope that your insight into my thoughts is, perhaps, more reliable than my own. _

_ I thank you, as always, for your friendship and your time. _

_ Catheryn _

"Statement ends.

"So, the fire Mrs. Burroughs refers to is actually something of an interest of mine. Its true cause was never determined, though some historians believe the reason the fire was able to destroy the foundations was thanks to a combination of weak stone, the fat and oil stores of the kitchens on the lowest level, and an unexpected cold snap the night of leaving the stone far more brittle than normal. The most popular theory is that it was caused by an unattended candle in the kitchens, but that's pretty much just code for 'they have no clue what happened'."

_ Delighted exclamation. _

"It is  _ so _ exciting to have a firsthand account from her, even if she doesn't talk too much about the fire itself. I didn't even know we had this, until Graham brought it in. Apparently it got put in with a bunch of statements from a few years ago by accident. Definitely a happy accident, though.

"I wonder if we have more of her letters to Eliza somewhere, because they could be a  _ great _ find. If it really was supernatural in origin, though - oh, that would make it so much more interesting! Quincy Burroughs did have an awfully unlucky life, so maybe he really was cursed or something. From the time he married Catheryn in 1890 until his death in 1907, he was nearly trampled to death by his own horse, the whole fire happened, he was shot in the leg while fox hunting, the only child he had with Catheryn died in birth, and… oh, I  _ know _ there's something in between that and the incident with the horse that left him with nine fingers - different horse from the one that trampled him, though - but I can't remember what. Oddly enough, his death in 1907 was also related to fire. He sustained pretty heavy burns from a dropped oil lamp, which then became infected due to improper treatment, leading to his death.

"So, who knows! Maybe he was actually being stalked by something bent on making his life as miserable as possible. After his death, I know that Catheryn remarried and led a perfectly average life, so I really don't think that whatever she saw was after her.

"There's not much point in doing additional research on this one. So, for now…

"End recording."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Blood, gore (both somewhat graphic), knives

"I've recruited Yaz to help me go through the deaths on American hiking trails, now. We made a bit of a weekend of it, actually. I bought snacks and she brought her laptop and we went through nearly every death that occurred on a hiking trail in America from the late nineties to 2013. There's… a lot. A really disturbing amount, honestly. But! Only about a quarter of them are animal-related, so that narrowed it down, sort of.

"In the end, we still had a couple thousand deaths that were ascribed to animals, though we ruled out the ones that were from smaller things or were actually confirmed to be from an animal. That actually got rid of a lot of them, so we only had a few hundred.

"We - well,  _ I _ \- made a spreadsheet with the date and location of every single death we could find. That was about as far as we got, but I think it was some pretty good progress! Once I can sort through the data to look for patterns, hopefully I'll be able to find the groupings. The thing likes to stay in one spot for a little while, which is useful in this case. Terrible for the people, but it makes for nice data."

_ Knock, knock. _

"Hey, boss? I've got a statement I think you might want to read."

"Bring it in, Graham!"

_ Gentle creak of hinges. _

"I just found this one with a few others from a few years ago, and… from what I skimmed through, it looks pretty important."

"Important how? Does it have to do with another statement?"

"Not the one you're hoping it does, but yeah. Just, uh, give it a read."

"I haven't done one yet today, so I guess this wins out against sentient bathtub mold."

_ Laughter. _

"Try and take a break after that, though, will you? You've been working real hard on that serial killer statement."

"I really don't think it's a serial killer. Only some of the bodies were found, and it doesn't stick around in an area for too long, so it's not after the notoriety. I don't think it's human."

" _ That _ is exactly what I'm talking about, boss. Take this weekend off from thinking about it, alright? Give your brain a break from all that."

"I'll try, Graham."

"Good."

_ Door closing. _

"Right, let's see what this statement is…

"Statement of Kevin Miller, regarding a murder he witnessed. Original statement given November 30th, 2012. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I can't go to the police. I mean, I thought about it, but… they wouldn't believe me even if I did. Even in this place, I feel a little ridiculous writing it down. I mean, maybe I just imagined it all. But I know I didn't. _

_ It happened while I was walking my dog, Rudy. He's a sweet little mutt, and he loves to go on walks in parks, so I try to do that every Saturday. There's a nice, big park not ten minutes from my flat, and that's where we usually go. Lots of trees, some nice trails, not very crowded most of the time since it's so big. _

_ Anyways, we were about halfway through our walk when Rudy started barking up a storm - and Rudy never barks. Not at cats, birds, other dogs, anything. He's always quiet as can be. But for some reason, he was barking himself hoarse and yanking on the leash, trying to pull me back the way we came. I thought he might have been sick, so I turned around and started heading home. Rudy kept straining, like he was scared of something. _

_ I heard the dripping before I saw the source. Just a steady plop, plop, plop. Like a leaky tap, or water falling on the paved trail. I looked over my shoulder to see what it was, and I saw a man. He was older, maybe in his sixties, and he was standing in the middle of the trail looking at me. I couldn't see what was making the noise, but I could see red splotches all over his clothes. _

_ It was definitely blood, and I got worried that he'd hurt himself somehow, so I stopped and asked him if he was okay. _

_ "I'm fine," the man said. "Just… looking for a friend." _

_ He didn't really look fine, that's the thing. Looking at him head-on, I could see that the sound was coming from blood dripping from his hand. It was pooling on the pavement, and there was a lot of it. Too much, honestly. _

_ I offered to help him look. I mean, if the guy didn't want medical advice from a stranger, fine, but I thought maybe his friend could convince him to go to a hospital. _

_ He sort of tilted his head and looked at me for a moment, before he said, "No. Thank you." _

_ After that, I decided to just leave. If this guy didn't want any help, then I didn't see a point in wasting the time, you know? Plus, the whole time, Rudy had been pulling at the leash and whining. If he hadn't had his harness on, I think he would have choked himself. And I don't mean to say that I was ignoring him, or that I wasn't paying attention to how hard he was trying to get away from this guy, but Rudy can be a bit of a coward and I thought it was just the blood or something that was making him act like that. _

_ We kept walking down the trail, and by the time I got back to my flat, Rudy had calmed down. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. It was still bright out, so I thought I might go back without Rudy, just to see if the man was still there. _

_ The park felt even emptier than normal when I came there the second time. There had been a mom and two kids at one of the playground sets as I was heading home, but they were gone now. It was just… eerie. Unnaturally quiet. _

_ That's how I heard it so easily - that same drip, drip, drip. I followed the sound, cutting through the trees a little bit, until I saw two men. One was the older guy I'd seen, and the other was a man wearing a suit. Maybe in his forties, I don't know. He was flat on his back in the dirt, and his eyes were wide open but he wasn't making any noise. _

_ That was probably because of the thin, bendy knife the older guy had pressed to it. He was holding it in his right hand, and the other one was dripping blood onto the dirt. The way he held the knife, he knew how to use it. And he did. _

_ I froze. I didn't know what to do. I had my mobile on me, but at the time, I didn't even think to call for help, or the police, or anything. I don't like gore, I never have. Not in movies, not in art, not even reading about it. And - yeah, I know, not really the same thing, but something about watching the guy slide that knife underneath his victim's skin and peel it away just made my brain skip over rational logic and straight to terror. _

_ Looking back, writing this down, I wish I'd done something. But in that moment, as the man folded the skin back from his victim's throat, as the blood began to trickle down the side of his neck, I couldn't move. _

_ It was slow and deliberate, the way the man continued. He peeled back just the skin, leaving red, bloody flesh beneath. It almost looked like one of those models of the human body where it only shows the muscles or the bones. A whole person, stripped down to just… meat. _

_ I think that's why I don't like gore - I don't like the reminder that there's nothing  _ **_really_ ** _ separating us from being meat. Sure, we've got thoughts and personalities and ideas, but there's not really anything physical about that. You can't pull someone apart and see their thoughts. You just see meat. _

_ The man kept going, until he ran out of skin that wasn't covered, and then he didn't stop. He stuck the knife underneath the suit, and when he peeled it back, the skin came with it. _

_ That's what broke me. I could feel myself on the verge of throwing up, and I could see the poor guy's heartbeat as more and more of his chest got peeled away, and knew if I made a sound I'd be the next victim. So I turned and I tried to sneak back through the trees, and once I thought I was out of earshot I took off running. _

_ I did throw up, once I got home. Rudy was waiting for me at the door, and after I cleaned myself up, just sat on the floor petting him while I tried to think. The terror kind of slowly ebbed away, but I would keep remembering the  _ **_sound_ ** _ of it, the sticky noise like pulling two pieces of paper that're stuck together apart, and it would come back. Or I would remember how horribly red the blood was, or the fact that I could see muscle and fat and sinew shuddering, or… _

_ I didn't call the police. It didn't even occur to me to try until at least an hour after I got home, and maybe it's a stupid reason, but I didn't want them to see what I saw. I know it's their job, but something about that whole thing wasn't right. Nobody just does that to another human being, nobody just skins a man alive in a public park. Whoever - whatever did that, it wasn't human. Isn't. I couldn't do that to people, I couldn't make them know that. _

_ I'm sure it's still alive, and I'm sure someone must have found the body, but I haven't gone near that park since. The next nearest one is thirty minutes in the opposite direction, but it's worth the walk to avoid that place. Rudy doesn't seem to mind. _

"Statement ends.

"I get why Graham thought I might want to look at this one, now. It's Mr. Baumgartner, I'm sure of it. Chances of a  _ different _ boning-knife-wielding old man going around skinning people aren't exactly high. Between this and his connection to Mrs. Martel, just what happened to him after he gave his statement? Because that was… mid-October of 2012, and this one was late November of the same year. That's a pretty big jump, to go straight to, well,  _ that. _

"I'll try to see if there's any disappearances corresponding to that timeframe that might be the one Mr. Miller saw. But after that, I think I'll take Graham's advice and try to leave all of this stuff alone for a few days. All the conspiracies and the supernatural serial killers -  _ if _ that's what they even are.

"I don't want my friends worrying about me. They've all got enough problems without mine to bother them, too."

"No luck finding reports of a missing middle aged man, possibly working in a professional environment. Ryan said he did his best, but I'm not really surprised. If Mr. Baumgartner planned this like I think he did, then he would have picked somebody he knew wouldn't be missed.

"I'm calling it quits for today, now. For the rest of the week, really. Those three can use an extra set of hands in sorting out all the less supernatural statements, and I can help with that. Maybe next time I record a statement, I'll have a clearer perspective.

"End recording."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Baumgartner is the man from the statement about the knife and the mango  
> Mrs. Martel is the woman from the statement about the kayaking trip


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Unreality, mentioned fatal car crash

"There's a thumb drive on my desk. I didn't put it there, and neither did any of my assistants. And I  _ know _ the archives - both the actual ones and the doors to the basement - were locked up properly because I did it last night. So  _ someone _ was able to break in and leave this on my desk, sitting on top of my laptop like it belongs there.

"I'm not even going to mention it to Mr. Kingsfield. Either he already knows because he put it there, or he'll just be vague and annoying about it. I guess I could ignore it and throw it away, but it feels… important. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's just a stupid prank, but I think I know who -  _ what _ \- left it here.

"I'll plug it in to my laptop and see what happens."

_ Sigh. _

"Ugh, why do they always go in the wrong way the first time? I'm not awake enough for this.

"There we go. There's a new storage device showing up on my laptop now, just called '9950811'. The only file is an .mp3 that's under the same title. If that's a statement number like I think is, then this must be one of John's recordings. But why would someone have that in the first place, let alone leave a copy for me…?

"I guess I should listen to it. Part of me wants to grab Ryan or someone to come in and listen with me, just in case- I don't know, just in case it's something weird. But he's busy. They're all busy. It's not worth bothering them for.

"Guess it's just you and me, recorder. Let's give it a listen, shall we?"

_ Click. _

_ Static. _

"She's doing it on purpose now. This is the third one that she's dropped off in the archives in a row, like they're meant to be some kind of  _ present. _ She knows I can't turn them away, but I am  _ not _ going to give her the satisfaction of taking live statements.

"Clara says I should try talking to her. She didn't seem amused when I told her that sounded about as appealing as removing my own teeth. Which is odd, because I did try to sound extra sarcastic.

"Maybe she's right - she usually is, in the end. Maybe telling Missy that traumatizing more people and then leaving them for me isn't helpful will actually change her mind. I'm not going to hold my breath in this case, though.

"But there's no use in ignoring the statement. Even if I find the source… distasteful.

"Statement of Verity Ramirez, regarding a series of dreams. Original statement given November 8th, 1995. Audio recording by John Irving, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I'm still not entirely sure what's happening. The woman - if she even is that - said that an archivist would see me, and then a different woman said he wasn't in, even though there was a light on in the office, and now I'm just sitting here writing this and hoping it'll make sense eventually. _

_ I guess it started a few days ago, with my friend's funeral. Her name was Bridget, and we'd known each other since uni. We were both tech crew in one of the musicals, and that's the sort of thing that'll bond people for life. She died in an auto accident, when some idiot wasn't watching the lights and… well. It was bad enough they didn't want to have an open casket. _

_ I went to her funeral. Of course I did, we were friends. Her parents and her brothers were there, and a few of our mutual friends from other theatre things, and a whole bunch of other people I didn't really recognize. But it wasn't really a big thing. There was the service, and the lowering of the casket, and then everything after that was meant more for family. Those of us from theatre went out to a little French place that Bridget had loved, and we all got absurdly drunk so we could pretend it was okay. _

_ After that, I called a cab and went home. Pretty sure I fell straight to sleep, but if I didn't, I couldn't tell you what I did before that. That was when I had the first dream. _

_ Have you ever been in a hall of mirrors? It's disorientating. You can't really tell how far away anything is, or which way you came, and the only hope you have of tracking your path is the smudges on the glass. And it's just endless, endless iterations of your own self looking back on you, just as confused and lost and frightened as you are except it's worse, seeing it. Worse having it reflected back at you. _

_ That's what the dream was like, sort of. It felt like I'd woken up in a house of mirrors, with no clue how I got there or how to get out. It didn't  _ **_feel_ ** _ like a dream, either. It felt real, horribly real. And for a while, I thought it was - that I'd done something incredibly stupid while I was drunk and maybe I still was, a bit, or at least not sober enough to figure out how to escape. _

_ I spent a good amount of time wandering around, hoping I'd be able to find a way out of there. I kept bumping into mirrors when I misjudged how close they were, or stumbling when I reached out a hand to the side and there wasn't a mirror where I expected there to be one. _

_ The floor was strange, too. Not quite reflective like the walls, but such a bright white that it was blinding to look at. Sunlight on fresh snow. I couldn't even see the ceiling; it was either so dark or so far up that it was functionally invisible. _

_ And every so often, when I managed to find a corner and go around it, I would see… something behind me. Just a flicker, just for a second. A person, I think, though they weren't quite right. Their fingers were too long, or their hair  _ **_writhed_ ** _ , or… It was unnerving. _

_ My search for a way out got more desperate, eventually. I was running as fast as I dared, as fast as I could without running in to one of the mirrors. Somehow, I was certain that if I did, I'd break it, and then I would never be free. Dream logic, you know? _

_ I had just turned a corner when I slipped and fell backwards. I braced for the impact, for the pain, but instead I woke up. I had a headache and felt exhausted, but I chalked it up to the hangover. _

_ That night, when I fell asleep, it was after spending a few hours on a YouTube binge. Somehow, I'd wound up on a video about non-Euclidean game design. Really obscure stuff, and kind of baffling. Fitting ten rooms in a space that should have only had four, and all that. Not what I'm usually in to at all, but something about it felt… familiar. _

_ I dreamed of that same place that night. Mirrors stretching on infinitely, or as close to infinity as I could see. This time, I tried to go in as straight a line as I could, in hopes that it would lead somewhere. Anywhere but there, really. _

_ No such luck, of course. Eventually I had to turn, and then the corners became more and more frequent, turning in on themselves so often I was sure that I was just going in circles. Not that I could really tell. It's hard to distinguish one mirror from another, after a certain point. _

_ I saw the figure again, too. Every time I turned, out of the corner of my eye, a flicker of humanoid limbs and blue eyes. Or of dark hair and overwhelmingly purple fabric. Or just the impression of angles, sharp and interlocking. It was impossible to tell what, exactly, they looked like, because it changed every time, ever so slightly. _

_ As I walked - I had learned my lesson about running - I got the impression that I was going deeper. Deeper into  _ **_what_ ** _ , I wasn't sure. But I knew I was going deeper. The mirrors took on a green tint as I went, and became more warped and distorted. The reflections of my face stopped looking like faces, but instead like memories. Younger selves, awkward from puberty or grinning from childhood, and… older selves, too, grey haired and severe. I saw my own corpse, staring back at me. _

_ That was what woke me, that time. Seeing my own face, sunken in and dead eyed but still  _ **_me,_ ** _ twisted and dead but unavoidably myself, was just too much. _

_ I tried not to think about it that day, but even during work, I would go into the green room and catch a glimpse of my distorted reflection in the mirror. I told Fletcher - one of the other stagehands - about it, and he said it was probably because of Bridget's death. For a little while, I almost believed him. _

_ And then I fell asleep last night and the mirror maze was sideways. Somehow, it was worse, scrambling awkwardly on my hands and knees as I tried to keep some kind of balance on the glass. I'd figured out that the only way out was through - whatever 'through' meant, anymore - so I did my best. Beneath me, and above me, iterating dizzyingly, were more and more versions of myself. I started to lose track of what was up and what was down; of which way I was even going anymore. _

_ The figure was clearer, this time. I could see it every time I looked up or down, too many teeth in a horrible, fractalling grin. Too-long fingers reaching for me, too bright eyes watching and laughing as I slipped and stumbled. _

_ And now, I guess I'm here. I don't know how, I don't know  _ **_why,_ ** _ but I'm here now. I don't even live in London. I don't know how I'm going to get home. I don't understand. _

"Statement ends.

"There's no point in doing any research. I know why Missy did this, and I know she's going to do it again unless I stop her. If I could just  _ understand _ her, maybe-"

_ Clattering, overlapping upon itself. _

"Hello, Archivist."

"Missy."

"Now, dearie, is that really any way to greet someone who sent you such a lovely present? Made it myself, you know."

"You traumatized an innocent woman and stranded her in my archives."

"Well, I  _ could _ have killed her. But I'm willing to share."

"I don't want you to  _ share, _ I want you to leave me alone."

_ Sigh, echoing as if from several speakers at once. _

"I suppose this is one of your 'morality' things, then?"

"Stop saying that like you don't know what that word means. I  _ know _ you used to be human."

_ Voices warp. _

"You don't  _ know _ anything, Archivist. You do not understand what I am. You  _ cannot _ understand I am. Whatever you  _ think _ you know is so limited by your own mind that you still believe you have any way of threatening me. And unless you would like me to break your mind for you, perhaps you should turn that recorder off. Your master doesn't need to hear this.

"What is it you say? Ah, right.

"End recording."

_ Fading static. _

_ Pause. _

"That… was not what I was expecting. But it's got to be the same woman from that statement I found on my desk a while ago, which means this thumb drive was left by the same person. So it definitely wasn't Mr. Kingsfield. Maybe she left it herself. I mean, she can clearly just appear in the archives whenever she wants, so that would explain it.

"Missy. Right. Her name is Missy. I'll add that to the sticky note. Missy, and mirrors, and she knew John.

"Oh stars, did she  _ kill _ John? She could have. She killed John and maybe she's going to kill me next.

"There aren't any mirrors in the archives, but she might not need them. I'll cover mine at home, just in case, and I'll warn the others, too. Hopefully that's enough.

"End recording."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Some mentions of parental neglect/bad parenting, isolation/loneliness

"Well, I haven't been murdered by a mirror woman yet, so I think this has been a good week! No mysteriously appearing statements on my desk, either. Yaz even had to go back deeper in the archives yesterday and said she didn't see anything suspicious. I mean, that's a little suspicious in and of itself, but I'm just glad she's okay.

"Also, Idris figured out how to open doors a few days ago, and almost got out while I was bringing groceries in. Luckily, the lift confused her enough that I was able to catch her, but I think I might have to start being more careful about closing doors properly from now on. I really don't want her wandering off and getting hurt.

"Since there aren't any statements in this room that were left by an unknown person, I think I'll read one from the blue pile. Let's see… ah! Here we go.

"Statement of Liam Sutherly, regarding his recent move to London. Original statement given January 18th, 2007. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ Can you even see me, as I sit here writing this? Do you even realize that I'm here? Or did you just go through the motions, not even registering my face, just like everyone else does? _

_ I guess I could say that this started when I moved to London, but really, it started long before that. My parents worked late, odd hours, so by the time I was in secondary school, I was lucky if I saw them for dinner. I was quiet and weird, so more often than not, the only people who would talk to me were fishing for help with their maths work, and not after actual friendship. That sort of set the tone for my life. I would get up, make myself breakfast, walk to the bus stop, sit through hours of classes diligently taking notes, and then ride the bus back home, where I would usually have to make dinner so my parents didn't. We didn't get a computer until I was at university, so I didn't have internet friends either. It was just me, whatever books I'd gotten from the library, and not much else. _

_ University and college were pretty much the same. No real friends, no parties or wild nights out. The most regular human interaction I had was with my flatmate, and we just mutually tolerated each other. Talking with him felt more isolating than not talking to anyone, honestly. He had such a vibrant social life - a girlfriend, a loving family, lots of friends and regular get-togethers - that it was just so depressing for me to hear about it. I would sit there and nod while he talked about how drunk he'd gotten the night before with his mates, and I couldn't even get envious, because I'd never known anything but the bland repetition of my existence. It sounded more exhausting than exhilarating, but I think if he'd ever invited me, I might have gone. Not that he ever did. _

_ I slumped my way through a degree in maths - statistics, not that it matters - and got a job analyzing advertisement data for a clothing company. It mostly meant spending eight hours a day in a cubicle, staring at rows and rows of numbers about people I'd never met. That felt isolating too, if I'm being honest. All these people who took surveys and bought such-and-such articles of clothing based on this advert, or because of that commercial, and all I did was soullessly try and figure out how to make the numbers bigger. _

_ For a little while, I had a girlfriend. Rebecca worked in the same department as me, and we ended up talking by the printer once, and she asked me out. I said yes, just for the novelty of it. She was so much more outgoing than me, so much more cheerful. I think I really was a little in love with her for that, for her spontaneity. Our dates would be tours of houses where people were murdered, or to restaurants that served brains, or sitting on the rooftop of her flat and people-watching. _

_ We lasted for two months before she told me she had figured out she was a lesbian, and very nicely dumped me. I didn't have any hard feelings about it; she was who she was, and even if she had been straight, I don't think we would have made it much further. I'm bad with people, and never really learned how to have a proper relationship thanks to my role models existing almost solely nocturnally. It just wasn't meant to be. Honestly, I was happy for her that she figured it out, and that I didn't eventually disappoint her a few months later instead. _

_ Rebecca promised we would stay friends, but I knew that was a lie. People always tend to forget about me after a while, and she was no different. She quit to go back to art school eventually, and even though she had my number, she never did call like she said she would. I didn't expect her to, though, so it didn't hurt as much as it should have. _

_ A couple years later, the clothing company I worked for started having financial issues, so I got laid off, along with some other people. Most of them weren't from advertising, but I figured I was tossed in with them simply because nobody knew me well enough to care whether I stayed or went. I had enough money saved to be fine for a little while as I went job-hunting, and I eventually found a similar job in London, if for a different company. I applied, got accepted, and packed up to move. _

_ I don't think I even told my parents that I was moving. It's not like we talked often. From what I know, their lives without me continued almost identically to their lives with me. I was just one less thing to worry about feeding - or, rather, one less person to help cook and clean when they weren't there. _

_ I managed to find a flat that I wouldn't need flatmates for. It was small, generally disgusting, and not particularly close to my job, but I didn't care all that much. After my flatmate in college, I had learned my lesson about sharing my living space - Rebecca and I never even got to that stage - and decided that all those downsides would be worth it to avoid that again. _

_ After I moved in, I guess that's when things started getting strange. I would go to the coffee shop about halfway between my flat and my office, place an order, and the barista would forget about it entirely. Every time, without fail, and not in a 'just happened to slip their mind' kind of way. I would get to the front of the queue, place my order, watch them write it down, and then by the time the next person placed their order, it would disappear from the notepad. Like I'd never even been there. _

_ Then it started happening at work. I would arrive, sit down, work for four hours, come back from my lunch break, and find that nothing I'd done since I'd got there was saved. And I would manually save every fifteen minutes, on the dot. It made no difference. I tried emailing the IT department, but - unsurprisingly - they never responded. I even went down there in person, and they never seemed to realize I was there. For all they knew, I might as well have not existed. _

_ It's been getting worse ever since. My bills never seem to be paid, even if I pay them; my groceries disappear from the pantry, when I can get the cashier to acknowledge my presence in the first place; my landlord once came in for an inspection and didn't notice I was there the entire time. _

_ I don't even know if this statement will remain here once I leave. I hope so, but… Given past events, chances are slim. If this does manage to continue existing, tell my parents- never mind. They won't care anyways. _

"Statement ends.

"I suppose the first thing to do is contacting Mr. Sutherly's parents. At the very least, they deserve to know that their son is… well. Maybe the first thing should be checking for an obituary for Mr. Sutherly, but I doubt we'll find one.

"It's probably a bad thing that I can relate, isn't it? After I…  _ left _ when I turned 20, I spent nearly five years just like that. I would make friends, but they wouldn't ever stick around for long. Either because they were more transient like me, or because they thought I was annoying, or so many other reasons. Even when I first ended up here, I didn't know anyone. As awful as it is, I'm a little grateful for what brought me and Yaz and Ryan and Graham together. Hunting down an artifact thief is certainly one way to bond, right?

"Well, enough about me. I'll be back once I - hopefully - find some more information on what happened to Mr. Sutherly."

"Sometimes, I hate when I'm right. No obituary for him, but there's also no records of him since before he gave his statement. As far as Ryan could find, that's the last actual proof of his existence since 2005. Graham's going to see if he can talk to Mr. Sutherly's parents, maybe ask if they've seen him or anything, but he's not very optimistic. I don't blame him. It sounds like, once their son moved out, the couple dropped all contact with him entirely.

"End recording."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Gaslighting

"Another week without anything weirder than normal happening. I'm starting to get worried that whatever is in the archives is biding its time. Waiting to strike. Waiting for one of us to go in alone, and then…

"Mr. Kingsfield won't do anything about it. I sent him an email, asking if we could get someone from security to check, and he said that archives business didn't concern security. Personally, I think my assistants  _ not _ getting eaten or what have you is a security matter, but apparently not.

"It's probably just starved, or left through whatever way it found in. However it did get in - which we still don't know. Nobody lost their keys or anything. It's probably gone. But I keep getting the feeling of being watched, and it's bad enough now that Graham has started noticing, so it's definitely  _ something. _ Just not sure whether it's the thing in the archives, or something else."

_ Sigh. _

"Right. Archiving. Yaz brought in one they found today, so I guess I'll give that a read.

"Statement of Joan Redfern, regarding her brother-in-law. Original statement given May 29th, 1999. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I met Leon thanks to my sister. She works at a veterinary clinic, and when he brought in his cat for a check up he mentioned being single. And Melissa was always trying to set me up with someone - she'd gotten married to her school sweetheart as soon as she could - so she gave him my number and set us up on a date. I, quite honestly, expected to hate him. But we actually hit it off pretty well, and then the dates kept happening, and somewhere along the way we moved in together and got married. All very rom-com of us, as Melissa likes to tease. _

_ But this isn't about Leon. Not really. This is about his brother, Jason. _

_ I have never disliked Jason, I want to make that clear. He was… fine. Where Leon is sweet and funny and caring and wonderful, Jason was the sort of person you have to go 'Ah. Okay.' about. Maybe that's unfair, comparing him to his brother, but it's the truth. Leon is a firefighter, Jason was the manager of a game store. _

_ I say 'was', but he isn't dead. Or, at least, a man called Jason Redfern who Leon believes to be his brother and who his parents believe to be their son still exists. The Jason Redfern I knew and tolerated does not. _

_ Trust me, I know how insane it sounds. But my family has no history of memory issues, or mental health problems, or anything like that. I'm not crazy, I swear. _

_ Jason had brown hair, brown eyes, and was short and about as pale as someone could get without being translucent. Even when he dressed up, he always had a kind of ratty look to him. I remember at our wedding, Leon even had to remind him to brush his hair properly before the ceremony. When we got together for Christmas, Jason always sat as far away from everyone else as was polite, and always gave low-effort, half-hearted presents. I always got socks that were slightly too big from him, in garish colors I would never wear. _

_ But last summer, he changed. We hosted the tenth birthday party for Melissa's youngest daughter, and Leon's family came too. His parents walked in with this utter stranger, and I pulled Leon aside to ask him who the man was. He gave me a weird look, and told me that was his brother, Jason. And I told him, no, Jason was a lot shorter than that, and Leon kind of laughed and teased me about it, and continued on like nothing had ever happened. _

_ This new person, this stranger, was tall - taller than Leon. He had black hair, and blue eyes, and a bit of a tan. He was dressed nicely, too, even just for a kid's birthday party; a blazer and nice trousers, that actually matched. In other words, he was  _ **_nothing_ ** _ like the real Jason. _

_ But nobody else seemed to think that. Leon and his parents seemed to think this was totally normal, and even Melissa and her husband Rob didn't seem to notice anything amiss. I was the only one who cared. _

_ At some point, I ended up chatting with him. I was trying to figure out what his deal was, why everyone else thought he was Jason. So I just straight out asked him who he was, and where the real Jason had gone. And he said - and I remember the exact words - "I've always been Jason." _

_ Not 'What do you mean, the real Jason?' or even 'Are you serious?'. "I've always been Jason." And then he kind of smiled at me, with all of his teeth. Jason usually smiled with his mouth closed. _

_ After the party, I went through old pictures from the wedding, trying to see if there were any with Jason - the  _ **_real_ ** _ Jason - in them. There weren't that many with him to begin with, and a lot of them seemed to have the imposter instead. But I did manage to find one. It was of him and Leon, after the ceremony, both grinning at the camera. They had the same goofy little smile when they were genuinely happy, and the same dimples. _

_ I pulled it out of the scrapbook album to show to Leon. When I did, he looked so confused. He asked me who that man was, when this picture was taken, where I got it. I told him it was Jason, and he didn't believe me. He said that he didn't even remember taking that photo at our wedding. _

_ I didn't bring it up again after that. I started to think that maybe I really had imagined it all, even though I knew, deep down, that it had been real. I still had the garish, awful socks in my drawer, even though I never wore them. I kept the photo with them, just a tiny little corner of my dresser reserved for something only I knew was real. _

_ Christmas came around, and the fake Jason had actual good presents for everyone. He bought me a set of wine toppers and some scrapbooking supplies. And when I opened the second gift, he looked me dead in the eye and said, "Since you've got such a knack for it." _

_ It sounded like a threat. I don't know how he knew about the photo I'd kept, or even what he was threatening, but I knew it was a threat. But I gritted my teeth and said thank you and didn't ruin the holiday. _

_ I moved the photo and the socks to the same safe where Leon and I keep the important paperwork. He never looks in there anyway, so I doubt he's noticed the socks. Even if he does, I don't really care. Keeping them where that imposter can't get to them just feels more important. _

_ My birthday was a week ago. The imposter came, of course. He gave me a camera, a nice digital one. _

_ I don't know what it is that's replaced Jason, or why no one else seems to remember the real Jason. I just know that I need to tell someone who might believe me, or else I think I'll go insane. I don't really expect you to help. Jason is dead, I'm sure of it, and some monster is wearing his name and memories, and I'm the only one who seems to care. _

"Statement ends.

"This one is… unnerving. I don't like the thought of completely forgetting someone, only to have them replaced by something else.

"But why is Mrs. Redfern the only one who remembers? If Jason was the target, why let someone remember? Unless Mrs. Redfern was the target, but why choose someone so comparatively distant?

"It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes sense.

"I'll see if we can find Mrs. Redfern and make sure she's alright. And mentally stable. I know this statement didn't record normally, but it can't hurt to check."

"According to Yaz's research, Mrs. Redfern is still alive, happy, and married to Leon. Jason Redfern is  _ also _ still alive, and seems to be living an average life. He's engaged, if his Facebook page is anything to go off of. All of the photos we could find match the description Mrs. Redfern gave of the imposter.

"I wish I could say that she just imagined it. But I don't think she did, and I think she's still got that photo in her safe. That's not the sort of thing someone imagines.

"Graham tracked down her number and called to ask if she wanted to give a follow-up statement, but she said she was trying to put that behind her.

"I suppose that's as much as we'll be able to find. Whatever it is that seems to have replaced the original Jason, it's got a good alibi.

"End recording."


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Slight gore, murder, potentially some claustrophobia  
> Also, shout-out to Kat(ineternity on here) for helping me pick a good murder spot in the Peaks District!

"And just as I started to think that _maybe,_ just maybe, things were going to be normal. There's another thumb drive on my desk. It looks identical to the last one - which is still in the locked drawer of my desk right now. I checked. Which means that this is another old recording of a statement that someone or some _thing_ left for me to hear.

"Maybe I should ignore it. Maybe whoever is behind this will lose interest if I stop playing along with their games. That would be the smart thing to do.

"Even so, though… I need to see what it is. The curiosity is already killing me, and I honestly don't think I'll be able to leave it alone."

_Sigh._

"I know this is a bad idea. But I can't _ignore_ something that's so important someone broke into my office to leave it. It might be useful for figuring out what happened to John, or what that thing in the archives is."

_Rustling._

"It's just like the last one, except this is statement number 9983009. Definitely one of John's recordings, then.

"Hearing his voice, hearing these old statements… it's like listening to a ghost. I knew him, I was _friends_ with him, but it wasn't a close friendship. Obviously. And the more I learn about him, the more it feels like I never knew him at all. I mourned his death, but I don't even know for sure what killed him."

_Click._

_Static._

"Clara's still investigating the circus. In her last call, she said they were looking for something called a hybrid, a key that would open the lock and… well. All the normal cult-ish end of the world things. But she seems to be making good progress infiltrating the ranks, and we should be able to put a stop to that soon.

"I've got a statement Bill found from one of Saxon's victims, near the end of his killing spree in the Peak District. One of the few where the victim actually survived, at least for a little while. If they're still alive, it's only because he's toying with them. Making a game of it.

"Though, according to Missy, he's in America now. Somehow. Not that it matters - he still needs to be stopped. I just haven't figured out _how,_ yet. Normally, the issue is not knowing the creature well enough, but this time, I think it's that we know each other too well.

"I wish-"

_Sigh._

"Never mind.

"Statement of Henry Calloway, regarding the disappearance of his wife. Original statement given September 30th, 1998. Audio recording by John Irving, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_I still can't believe she's dead. And I know the police haven't confirmed it as a murder yet, but they wouldn't be keeping me here if they didn't think… that I killed her. I didn't. I've said that so many times in the past two weeks, but I feel like I need to say it again. I didn't kill my wife._

_I should probably start back at the beginning. We came to England to celebrate our fifth year together - our second since we got married. Izzy and I are both big on urban exploration. That's how we met, actually. We were both checking out this abandoned house in the backwoods of Georgia, and I was leaving just as she was going in. We nearly ran into each other, since it was so dark. From there, we ended up trading numbers, and then it all kind of fell into place._

_Which brought us to five years together, taking a trip to England for a month to see the sights and do a little exploring off the beaten path. Staffordshire was the third city on our list, and we were really only there for the tunnel. The Harecastle Tunnel's got a lot of interesting history, and seeing it up close and personal seemed like it was worth spending a day in the city for._

_We spent most of the morning wandering around, but after we stopped and had lunch, Izzy decided it was time to hit the tunnel. So, flashlights in hand, we headed over._

_Technically, the Harecastle Tunnel is a network of tunnels. There's the old Brindley tunnel - which hasn't been used in decades - and then the Telford one, which is still in use. The Telford tunnel has lots of old coal mines attached, though, back from the 1800s. They're not really open to the public, or safe to use, but… Izzy and I wanted to see if we could find a way into some of them._

_Getting to the Telford tunnel was pretty easy, all things considered. It's not blocked off from foot traffic or anything, just not encouraged. From the moment we got there, I could see why - it was pitch black, narrow, and the air smelled stale and strange. Neither of us were deterred, though. We knew it would be dark, so we had flashlights, and the walkway had enough of a ledge we weren't too worried about falling into the water or anything._

_What I didn't expect was how long the tunnel was. There wasn't even a light at the end that we could see; the only source of light was our flashlights and the lights on the boat so far ahead of us they weren't any use._

_After about twenty minutes, I heard something. Coming from in front of us, though it was hard to tell from the way the sound echoed off of the walls of the tunnel. Like a drumbeat, or heavy footsteps. At such a distance, it was impossible to count how many - it could have been one, it could have been a thousand. All I know is that, the minute I heard it, I knew something was off._

_Izzy, though, thought it was just from the boat and wanted to keep going. So… we kept going. Dotted every so often along the walls are the alcoves, and each time we passed one, we'd stop to see if it led to a mining tunnel. Whenever we stopped, I would hear the sound again, getting closer and closer, more and more distinct. There was a pattern to it, but it didn't become obvious for a while._

_When it did, though, it made me nervous. It was a fast, frantic sort of one-two-three-four. Like a heartbeat or something, twice as fast as it should be. It was unsettling. Like how hearing fast-paced music can make your heart rate speed up, too. That's what it felt like, when my heart started beating faster. Like it didn't have any choice._

_That's when Izzy started to get concerned, too. I said I wanted to turn back, and she agreed. We'd seen the tunnel, and that was what we were_ **_really_ ** _there for, even if we had wanted to see the coal mines. Leaving without that was better than sticking around any longer with the weird sounds._

_As I started to turn around, I saw a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. A shape in the shadows, lurking just beyond the beam of my flashlight. I tried to see what it was, but by the time I looked back, it was gone. That made me kind of wary to turn my back, but I couldn't exactly leave walking backwards. So, even though it made me nervous, I turned._

_While we walked, the sound got louder and louder, those four beats stronger and nearly pounding in my ears. I was starting to wish we'd brought ear plugs or something, just so that the noise wouldn't be so bad._

_It was as I turned to Izzy to say something about it that she tripped. I'm not even sure what she tripped_ **_over,_ ** _just that one moment she was on her feet, and the next she was faceplanted on the walkway, her flashlight making an escape. I went to stop the flashlight from rolling away and falling into the water._

_For as long as I live, I think I'll always regret that._

_By the time I grabbed Izzy's flashlight and turned back around, there was a massive dark shape crouched over her, and her throat… I guess 'torn open' would be as good a way as any to describe it. There was blood everywhere. And that_ **_thing_ ** _looked up from where it had ripped out her throat with its horrible teeth, and it grinned at me._

 _I dropped the second flashlight and took off running down the tunnel. All I could think was that maybe, if I was fast enough, I could get help. An ambulance, a first aid kit, anything to save Izzy. And… anything to get me away from that thing, too. It wasn't like I had a weapon to fight it off with - all I had was two cheap flashlights we'd gotten at a camping supply store. They weren't going to do anything to something that could do_ **_that._ **

_I ran, and I could hear when the creature began to follow me. That same footstep beat, that one-two-three-four, followed me as it ran. Several times, I swear I could feel its breath, hot and wet and smelling like blood, against my neck. Every time I almost stumbled, every time I almost fell, I was gripped by such a strong terror, worse than anything else I've ever felt._

_Not even seeing the light of the outside world felt like a relief, even when I made it out of the tunnel in one piece. I looked behind me, trying to see if the creature had followed me out of the tunnel, but there was nothing. Or, if there was something, I was too busy screaming for someone to call an ambulance to notice._

_Eventually, an emergency response team did show up. They asked me what happened, and when I told them the truth, they gave me a shock blanket and told me to sit in the ambulance, at least until they found Izzy._

_I couldn't bear to look when they brought her body out. The blood was dripping onto the ground in that same awful four beat pattern, and I could hear it. The paramedics said there wasn't anything they could do. It didn't come as a surprise, not really. There's not much_ **_anyone_ ** _can do, once someone's torn your throat out._

_Apparently, I'm the prime suspect in the murder investigation. I've said over and over that I didn't kill Izzy, but there aren't exactly other suspects. Whatever that creature was, it hasn't come out and admitted anything._

_At first, I tried to tell them about the creature, but they wouldn't listen. One of the detectives made a joke about not being the Gallifrey Institute, and… I don't know. I hoped you would be able to help me. I guess not, though, since I'm just supposed to give my statement. But it's been nice to get all of this off my chest, even if it won't mean anything in the long run._

"Statement ends.

"Another gristly murder. Wish I could find it shocking, but these days, it's par for the course. It's definitely Saxon, that's for sure. The four beats are rather distinctive. He's always been obsessed with it, ever since…"

_Pause._

"I'll have Nardole do some research, see what happened to Mr. Calloway. It's been over four years, so perhaps he's said something further about his experiences. Or perhaps Saxon caught up to him and he's now joined his wife."

"Mr. Calloway was allowed to return to America early in 1999, and found dead in his home in Savannah, Georgia in August of 2004. It was ruled a suicide, though the wound to his head was not definitively a gunshot wound. I suppose that's good evidence that Missy was telling the truth about Saxon's whereabouts, then.

"Maybe I'll schedule a trip, once Clara and I have taken care of the circus.

"End recording."

_Fading static._

_Click._

"Okay. The four beats creature is named Saxon, and John knew it too. Was tracking it, trying to stop it, but he couldn't because they knew each other too well. That's… worrying. And another reference to Missy, which is also worrying. This whole thing is just one worry after another.

"If this was recorded in 2004, then it's only a few years before Clara quit, because that happened not long after I started working here in 2005, so that means-

"Ugh, I don't _know_ what that means. I don't know what any of this means! I'm trying to solve a puzzle where half the pieces are missing and the other half are broken and there's no picture to go off of and it's driving me _mad!_ None of this makes any sense!"

_Pause._

"I need a break. I need some tea.

"End recording."


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mold, general grossness  
> I'm not quite happy with this statement, so I might come back and rewrite it at some point. But it's the last chapter before things go horribly awry, and I wanted to get it posted and out of the way sooner rather than later

"Pretty sure this is my third day on less than ten hours of sleep, but I  _ can't _ sleep. I spent all week trying to figure out how John died, and what happened to his assistants, and how it all connects to Missy and Saxon. Because it  _ has _ to connect. It has to. Whatever is leaving these clues for me ties in to this too, and it's leading me, or- or helping me, or taunting me. I don't know which, but it wants me to find out what happened to John.

"Everything I could find about his death indicates he died of a heart attack. His medical paperwork that I… well. No point in avoiding the truth. The paperwork that I stole from Records says he never had any signs of heart problems. Physically speaking, he was perfectly healthy up until the day he died.

"And that brings me to another point. I was given this job on February 28th of this year. The last time I saw John was about two weeks before that, when we left work at the same time and ran into each other on the way out. He looked fine, I think. I don't really remember. I didn't know that would be the last time I would see him. I barely even noticed him.

"Anyway. The email informing the Institute of John's death was sent out at 3:00 in the morning on February 16th. But the death certificate - which was  _ very _ annoying to get - has his time of death at 2:43 am of that day, and there is no way Kingsfield got that information that fast.

"I've considered that he might have killed John, too. I wouldn't put it past the man. Maybe John found something he shouldn't have, and Kingsfield needed to shut him up.

"That's another thing. I don't know how John actually died. The heart attack clearly wasn't it, and there's no autopsy report. There wasn't even a funeral, I don't think. He didn't exactly have a lot of family, from what I've found. No siblings, no children, and apparently not any friends close enough to pay for a proper funeral. I'd have thought that Clara, at least, would've… 

"I even went to the graveyard where he's buried. There's just a simple headstone, name and dates and nothing else. No flowers."

_ Gentle creak of hinges. _

"Theta? Are you okay?"   
  
"I'm fine, Yaz."

_ Disbelieving pause. _

"I didn't get much sleep last night. That's all."

"You look terrible, and you've been hiding in here all week. I think I've seen you twice in three days, and both times I thought you were about to pass out where you stood. Is this about the recording you found, the one from John?"

"No!"

"You're really bad at lying."

"It's nothing, Yaz. Really. I'm about to record a statement. Look, see?"

"If you don't want to tell me, that's… fine, I guess. But please don't lie. I'm worried about you."

"Nothing to worry about! Don't you have statements to sort?"

"You're dodging the question."

"I'm  _ trying _ to do my job, which I can, because I'm fine. Really."

_ Sigh. _

"Fine. But after this, we're having a talk."

_ Door closing. _

_ Pause. _

"Right, what statement did I grab?

"Oh.  _ Lovely. _ Guess I'd better record it, though, just so I have something to upload. Maybe then Yaz'll stop worrying.

"Statement of Felicity Densworth, regarding… ugh. Regarding the mold in her bathtub. Original statement given April 12th, 2011. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I grew up in the house. My parents owned it, and then when they passed, they left it to me. I had so many fond memories that I decided to live in it, rather than rent it out or sell it. _

_ It needed a bit of repair, just because it was so old. I had the floors redone, and then one of the toilets. The upstairs one, that used to be mine when I lived in the smaller bedroom instead of the master bedroom. The tile was all cracked and dirty, the sink was oddly shaped, and the bathtub had drainage issues. I simply had it all replaced, and that seemed to be that. _

_ For several years, even, it was all fine. I rarely used it, unless I wanted to take a bath, so for the most part it completely slipped my mind. It was only when one of my cousins asked me to watch her kids for a few days - she was going on some business trip - that I first noticed the mold. _

_ I was cleaning the toilet in preparation for the children using it, when I spotted a bit of mold near the drain of the tub. Bleach seemed to take care of it well enough, though. The mold disappeared as soon as I started pouring. After that, I thought little of it. The children came and went without incident - except for one mess with chewing gum, but there was no hair lost - and once again, I forgot about the mold entirely. _

_ Spring came, and I decided to do a proper deep clean of the house. Well, I actually hired a maid to do it, but the principle stands. She took care of most things, but said there was a patch of mold so big she couldn't handle it. Apparently, it posed enough of a health risk that she suggested getting professionals to look at it and see what to do about it. _

_ Which I did, eventually, but first I took a look at it myself. Mold is only supposed to form in damp environments, so the fact that it was growing in an area that I never used was strange, and I wanted to see if there was some underlying cause. A leaky faucet, perhaps, that I could have repaired. _

_ When I first stepped inside the bathroom, I could  _ **_smell_ ** _ it. Something sickly sweet and rotting in the air itself. I nearly gagged, if I recall correctly. Looking at the tub itself, I could see why the maid suggested that I contact a professional - it had spread over the entire basin, and was creeping up the tile of the walls. Dark, fuzzy, disgusting patches covering so much of the tub that it looked like carpet. _

_ Some part of me wanted to reach out and touch it. It looked almost soft, velvety to the touch. I didn't, of course. Touching such a horrible thing was an awful idea, I knew that much. It could have been poisonous, or otherwise deadly. And yet, the temptation remained. _

_ I called mold removers the next day, explaining the situation. When I said that it covered the entire tub, they didn't seem to believe me, but once they arrived and saw the extent of the spread, they told me that it would be easier to just remove the entire tub and the section of wall. It wasn't as if I had an emotional attachment to a bathtub I had had replaced a few years prior, anyway. _

_ The replacement process took longer than I would have liked, and I ended up with the bathroom locked and covered by a plastic sheet for a week and a half until it could be removed. The whole time, each time that I would pass by it in the corridor, the urge to go in and touch the mold only grew stronger. _

_ A week in to the wait, I gave in. I tied fabric over my mouth and nose, just in case there were any dangerous spores, but I  _ **_had_ ** _ to touch it. Something compelled me to. _

_ Since I had last been in, it had spread further. The wall behind the tub had been completely consumed by the mold, covering it like a blanket. I reached out one hand and touched the furry, repulsive rot. _

_ It was soft, like I had expected, but that wasn't what made me keep my hand pressed to the wall. It felt  _ **_right,_ ** _ touching it. Like if I let it, it could cover me in mold, too. I could become part of it, part of the living, breathing creature that now resided in the room. It would welcome me,  _ **_embrace_ ** _ me, take me in. All I had to do was let it spread. _

_ I wanted to, on some level. I could imagine the feeling of the spores in my lungs, covering them in soft darkness inside and out, doing the same to the rest of my body until all I was became enveloped. _

_ But it scared me, too. The thought of something so disgusting infiltrating me, coating my skin like it coated the wall. It would love me, if I let it, but it would erase who I truly was. A tradeoff; acceptance in exchange for uniformity in horror. _

_ It scared me enough that I pulled my hand back, and was terrified to find that some of the mold clung to my skin as I did. Washing it with water made no difference, the feathery matter only sticking closer to me, digging roots into the cracks of my skin. I could feel it spreading across my fingertips, down my palm, reaching up my arm. _

_ Scrubbing at it did nothing. Nor did my attempts to cut it off with a knife. _

_ The idea of using fire only came to me when I was desperately dunking my hand in boiling water, hoping that it would remove the rot spreading ever further. I found a lighter, in the back of a drawer of my kitchen, and lit it with my other hand. Instantly, the mold began to recede, burning up into ash as I held the flame closer to my skin, so close it began to blister. I gritted my teeth and held firm until it was completely destroyed. _

_ Gone was the creeping, growing mold, and gone was the sense of belonging that it had brought. I felt so empty, as I bandaged my burnt hand. So alone. _

_ For the rest of the time until the bathtub was removed, I didn't go near the room. Even now that the tub is replaced, I avoid it except for a weekly check to ensure that no more mold has begun to grow. I'm not sure I could resist its pull a second time if it were to return. _

"Statement ends.

"This one wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I mean, yes, it was horrifying, but… I was afraid it would be something ridiculous. Sentient, murderous mold, maybe.

"I'll have someone make sure Ms. Densworth is alright. And I suppose I'll have to talk to Yaz."

"Ms. Densworth is, as of Ryan's findings, just fine. And Yaz says she's only worried about me because she thinks I'm getting obsessed. She says they're  _ all _ worried.

"I don't want them concerned about me. I'm fine. And I know I'm the one ruining it, but I just need to figure out what happened to John, get rid of the thing in the archives, and then things can go back to normal. We can all sort statements and make fun of the fake ones. Like we used to do in Artifact Storage when someone would bring in scissors they thought were haunted 'cause they stopped working.

"I just… I can't leave this mystery unsolved. Not when it could put them at risk. If Kingsfield really did kill John - or if whatever killed him is still out there - then I can't have it hurting my friends, too.

"But Yaz made me promise that I would take better care of myself. I guess she has a point. I have been feeling kind of tired, lately."

_ Short, deprecating laugh. _

"Probably the lack of sleep. Maybe I'll go home early today and try going to bed before three in the morning. At the very least, it might help my friends feel better.

"End recording."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Unreality, stalking

"Another statement file's appeared, some time between when I went home early yesterday and when I got here. Ryan says he was the last one to leave, and he double-checked that he locked the doors.

"Maybe all of this really has been Kingsfield, and he lied to me when I asked him about that first statement. He's the only person I can think of with keys to the archives  _ and _ any sort of reason for leaving the statements in the first place. Or maybe it's two different people - one who left the paper statements, and one who left the thumb drives. Except that all three I've seen reference Missy, and have notes from John, and were on almost the exact same spot on my desk. Right on top of my laptop, even though there's some clear space this time. It's got to be the same person.

"I'm going to read it. Obviously. If it's like the others, it'll have some kind of information about John, or about those monsters he knew, and that could be useful. Hopefully.

"...and then I'll tell my friends about it, so that they won't worry. But I don't like having them here as I read the statements. It just feels  _ wrong. _ Dangerous, almost."

_ Rustling papers. _

"Statement of Marshall Quay, regarding several incidents involving mirrors. Original statement given August 20th, 1987. Audio recording by Theta Lungbarrow, Head Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London.

"Statement begins."

_ I always had a fear of mirrors. Well, I say always, but that's not quite true - and I know exactly what started it. _

_ I was five, and my mother had a simple hand mirror that she used so that she could make sure her hair looked good. She kept it on her dresser, which was just out of reach for me at that age. I could see the top of it, but that was about it. _

_ One day, though, I managed to climb onto the countertop while my mother was downstairs. My little sister was only a few months old at the time, so I was often unsupervised during my play time. Normally, that wasn't too much of an issue, but for whatever reason, I was bent on getting on top of the dresser. I stood on top of the handles, I think, and just barely managed to pull myself up onto it. _

_ As I knelt there, marvelling at the fact that I'd managed to get up there in the first place, I saw the mirror. I picked it up and looked in it, and saw myself looking back. I stuck my tongue out, and so did mirror-me. For a little while, I amused myself with that; making silly faces at the mirror and watching it reflect them back. _

_ And then I saw the woman. She was standing just behind my reflection, head tilted at an angle so sharp it shouldn't have been possible, bright blue eyes fixed on me. I turned around to see if she was really behind me, and fell right off of the dresser. _

_ I fractured my left wrist and completely shattered the mirror when I hit the wood floor. My mother came running to find me crying and bleeding, the glass of the mirror in pieces around me. I remember it being a pattern, something entrancing and spiralling, though my mother doesn't recall that. _

_ After that, I avoided mirrors like the plague. I wasn't scared of  _ **_them,_ ** _ precisely, so much as I was afraid of seeing that woman again. She unnerved me, and some nights I would see her in my dreams. Her fingers would be long and sharp, reaching for me from every mirror, wanting to drag me into a maw lined with needle-bright teeth. I had nightmares for years about her, sporadically. _

_ I grew out of it eventually, though, or at least I thought I did. By the time I turned 17, I could look into mirrors without even flinching, and if I had nightmares about that woman, then I didn't wake up remembering them. I thought it was just some silly childhood fear, something that I'd imagined and blown out of proportion in my own head. _

_ I was… kind of an arse when I was in my twenties. I didn't bother with anything after secondary school, since I was never much for that sort of thing anyhow, so I got an apprenticeship for a plumbing job instead. I think it gave me a bit of an ego, that I was making so much money compared to everyone else my age, and I wasted a lot of it drinking and such. Pretty sure my flatmate hated me for that. _

_ I didn't mind the guy, personally. He was quiet, but we got along pretty well. The thing I really remember about living with him, though, was the mirror he had. A huge one, probably some kind of antique, with a proper silver frame and everything. Apparently it was his grandmother's or something, and he kept it in his room. I never touched it - even then, I was still a little wary about mirrors. _

_ But I think it's that mirror that brought  _ **_her_ ** _ back. My flatmate broke it at some point, and he tossed the shards into the bin. That would've been fine, except I was the one taking out the garbage that week, and one of the bits of glass cut through the bag and sliced my hand open. That night, I had the first nightmare about the woman in the mirror that I'd had in years. _

_ I was back home, staring into the hand mirror again, and she was behind me. She looked almost  _ **_hungry,_ ** _ those creepy blue eyes staring right at me and her teeth showing when she smiled. I couldn't stop watching her, the way her hair shifted like it had a mind of its own and seemed to have more depth to it than should have been possible. _

_ When I woke up, I looked at the cut on my hand, and saw that it was healing in the shape of a spiral, even though the shard of glass cut me in a straight line. _

_ That was the only nightmare I had for a while. It haunted me, though, and I just couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it was only a matter of time before she got me. I didn't even know what that entailed, just that it was  _ **_terrifying._ **

_ A few years later, something else weird happened. It wasn't related to the mirrors, but it's important later, so I hope you don't mind me talking about it. _

_ I was walking home from a date with a girl. We'd had dinner at a Greek place, and then she wanted to walk back to her place. It was the middle of the summer, fairly nice out, so I was fine with it. We were getting on pretty well, laughing at some story of hers about how she'd had to get half her hair cut off in primary school because she got glue in it. Eventually, we got to her flat, and we kissed before she went in. It was nice, real sweet and all that. _

_ I could've called a cab. I  _ **_should've_ ** _ called a cab. But it was warm, and I was happy, so I decided to walk to my flat instead. _

_ After a few streets, I got the feeling that someone was following me. I turned around, but I didn't see anyone. _

_ I passed a few more buildings, and this time I swore I could hear footsteps - quick bursts of four, a sort of start-and-stop running behind me. But when I looked, there was no one there. _

_ I started going faster, just a little. Not really running, but walking quicker than my normal pace. My flat was still a good twenty minutes away, and I was starting to consider calling a cab just to get away from the feeling of being followed. _

_ The footsteps kept pursuing me, though, closer and closer behind me until I thought I must be going mad. No matter how quickly I turned, I couldn't see the source, and soon enough I was outright running, sprinting down the street and trying to get to my flat. I didn't know what would happen if -  _ **_when_ ** _ \- whatever was chasing me caught me, but I didn't want to find out. _

_ I made it back, that night, but those few seconds when I stopped at the door to unlock it felt like the longest and most terrifying seconds of my life. The footsteps had gone silent, and all I could think was that if I turned around then, I'd be dead. I slammed the door behind me and locked it, and didn't sleep at all. When I looked at the door the next morning, there was a set of claw marks in the paint. Faint, but I couldn't miss them. Four scratches, just like the footsteps. _

_ The nightmares started up again after that, but they were… different. Instead of looking into a mirror and seeing the woman, I would be in a maze, the walls lined with mirrors. Something would follow me through it, trailing just far enough behind me that I could hear the one-two-three-four of footsteps, but I could never see it. Occasionally, I would see the woman as well, reflected over and over in the mirrors and laughing at me. _

_ That was scary, but not as bad as what I saw last night. What made me come to give my statement, just in case… just in case I can't, in the future. _

_ It started like the other dreams. The hall of mirrors, the wandering and the chasing. But this time, I could see what was chasing me. I used to think it was human, but this thing  _ **_wasn't._ ** _ Not any more than the woman that watched from the mirrors and laughed was. _

_ Maybe the body could've been human, if you just saw the silhouette, but the head was like a wolf's. Long, snarling, toothy jaws and dark eyes, white-ish fur covering it from the tip of its nose, down its neck, over its arms… Like something out of a horror movie, but I could smell the blood and  _ **_hunger_ ** _ and it was so terribly real. I took off running, just like I had that night on the street, and it chased me. Hunted me. _

_ The maze twisted around itself, and I think I was hoping that it would confuse the creature only steps behind me. But the maze - or the woman, or both - seemed to be helping it. I would turn a corner and think I'd lost it, only for it to appear in front of me, forcing me to turn and run in the other direction or risk being caught. Being  _ **_eaten._ ** _ Because I knew that's what would happen if I slowed down too much. Those horrible jaws were meant for rending flesh. _

_ I almost did get caught, several times. My lungs would be burning and I would have to stop for a second while it was out of sight to catch my breath, and then the whole maze would shift and suddenly it would be right behind me again. But somehow, I managed to stay just ahead of it. I think it was toying with me, enjoying my terror. _

_ When I woke up, I was out of breath and exhausted. I didn't go to work - I just came right here. Figured someone should know what happened to me if I… if I die tonight. _

"Statement ends.

"That's Missy and Saxon, I'm sure of it. And if that creature Mr. Quay described is-"

_ Pause. _

_ Shuddering exhale. _

"Well. I know what's in the archives now. I need to get everyone out of here  _ now, _ and I need to call the police and tell them there's a serial killer hiding in-

"No. No, that'll just get them killed, especially if they go rushing in unprepared. He hasn't done anything yet, so maybe I can make a plan to- to catch him, or something.

"But the first priority is getting everyone out of here. I probably won't be able to evacuate the whole building, but at least I can make sure Yaz, Ryan, and Graham are safe. Maybe-"

_ A long, piercing beep. _

"Wait. Is that the fire alarm?"

_ Rustling of fabric. _

_ Another long beep. _

"Definitely the fire alarm. No, no, this is good, that means everyone's going to be out of the building. But where's the fire?"

_ Creak of hinges. _

"Guys, where's-"

_ A startled yelp, followed by the impact of a body hitting a solid surface. _

_ A soft, low growl. _

_ "Hello, little Archivist." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up - chapters 19 and 20 will both be going up tomorrow! Until then, enjoy the cliffhanger :3


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Stalking, discussion of several killings (both human and animal)  
> And now, 2.5k+ words of exposition dumping!

_ Groan. _

"Where is this place?"

_ "Not any of your concern, little Archivist. Rest assured, none of your friends will find it." _

"Fine, then. Why'd you kidnap me? Why not just kill me,  _ Saxon? _ Like you and Missy killed John. Where is she, by the way? You've got a mirror, but I don't see her."

_ Laughter. _

_ "And here I was, thinking you'd actually figured it out. I gave you plenty of hints, but I suppose my standards were a little too high. Though John was a lot like you at first, jumping to conclusions. So convinced he was doing the right thing. I think it was poor Clara Oswald that really changed  _ **_that."_ **

"You're not answering my questions."

_ "No, I'm not. That must sting, hmm? All those statements you've read, but you're still new enough that that compulsion doesn't come easily." _

"If you're just going to mock me, why don't you kill me already?"

_ "Don't worry, I will. But I did bring you down here for a reason. This is still during your office hours, after all, and I want to give a statement." _

"I'll pass, thanks. You can fill out the papers first."

_ "Oh, but your recorder is already on. Here, I think I know how it goes. _

" _Statement of Harold Saxon, regarding… oh, let's say regarding the death of John Irving. Original statement given live, June 9th, 2016. Audio recording by Harold Saxon, Hunter, and Theta Lungbarrow, Archivist of the Gallifrey Institute, London._

_ "Statement begins. _

_ "John and I met at boarding school. Yes, terribly shocking, I know. We made fast friends, since he was insufferable and I was mad, and none of the other children wanted anything to do with us. Even then, I didn't care. I knew what I was like. But John never did quite break that nasty habit of trying to make friends. I came first, though, and that was what I cared most about. _

_ "We would skip classes together, get into all sorts of trouble… It was almost idyllic. John didn't mind that I was more than a little obsessive, and I didn't mind right back. We were both clever, too. Top of the class, if we'd bothered. Which, of course, we didn't. _

_ "There were disagreements. Too similar to get along, for better or worse. Usually John would sulk, and I would imagine doing horrible things until we'd both get too lonely and pretend it hadn't happened. Rinse and repeat for nearly a decade. _

_ "From the look on your face, you probably want a little more explanation than that for why I'm… well. Not human enough for my meals to really be cannibalism anymore. Nod once for yes, little Archivist." _

_ Pause. _

_ Snarling. _

_ "I said to  _ **_nod."_ **

_ Shorter pause. _

_ "Thank you. Audience participation is important. Now, I suppose you could say that it started when I was eight, though it took longer to really reach fruition. _

_ "My father enjoyed fox hunting. One of his favorite hobbies, when it was the right time of year. He always talked about how he would take me with him, once I was old enough. And, apparently, that fell right around the age of eight. _

_ "I was barely big enough not to fall off the horse at that point, so I was riding with him at the front of the hunt. I can still remember the chill of the morning as all of us gathered, the hounds packed together into one mass of fur and fury, the horses off to the side watching with wide eyes. _

_ "My father was the master of the hunt, and when he ordered it to begin, there was no hesitation. The horn blew, and the hounds scattered into the brush, and the hunt was on. _

_ "Fox hunting involves far more waiting than you might think. The hounds have to find their quarry, first, and that takes time. Normally, that would have bored me. But there was something about watching the hounds shift through the foliage, sniffing out the hapless victim, that entranced me. I imagined that I was one of them, digging out prey. _

_ "Eventually, they found a fox, and then the hunt truly began. Baying and the calls of the horn filled the air, and the horses galloped after the hounds. It was exhilarating, the rush of wind and the terrified shrieking of the fox and the knowledge that we were drawing ever closer to capturing it. I could feel the heartbeat of the hunt itself, faster than any human's, thudding in my ears. One-two-three-four, over and over. _

_ "I think it was that feeling that distracted me. I should have known better, but caught up in the thrill and bloodlust of it, I loosened my grip on my father's horse, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground in the heather. _

_ "I wasn't trampled, though to this day I'm not sure how. Luck, I suppose. A blessing from the drums. But I was left behind, and so quickly that by the time I was on my feet again, the only trace I had of the hunt was the trampled plants in their wake. _

_ "I knew I had no hope of catching up with them, so instead, I turned and headed back for the starting point. Eventually, my father would realize, and once the hunt was finished, he would come back and find me. _

_ "As I walked through the woods, I heard something rustle beside me. I turned, and there, staring out of the bushes, was a fox. It snarled at me, and I snarled right back. I had no gun, nor a knife, nor anything more than my hands, but I suddenly knew that I could kill the fox. That I  _ **_had_ ** _ to kill the fox. I had to feel that thrumming heartbeat of the hunt again. _

_ "I picked up a stick off of the ground and thrust it into the fox's eye before it could disappear back into the woods. It yelped once, and then fell to the ground, dying. Perhaps already dead, though I couldn't tell. _

_ "I wanted to take some sort of trophy, something to show my father. A tooth seemed like the most obvious choice, but pulling it from the fox's mouth was difficult. I ended up with several wounds on my hands just from cutting myself on the enamel as I tried to pull the tooth out. When I finally succeeded, I was covered in blood, both my own and the fox's. _

_ "With my trophy in bloodied hands, I walked back to the starting point and waited for the hunt to finish. By the time my father came back for me, though, I had decided to keep my victory a secret. I didn't want him to react poorly. So I lied, and told him that my scratches were from thorns, and kept the tooth hidden. _

_ "That was the start of it all, I think. The beats, the drumming never quite left me, after that. By the time my parents sent me off to boarding school, hoping that it would make me normal, it was my one constant companion. At least, until John. _

_ "He found it fascinating, once. I showed him the fox tooth, and he turned it over in his hands and said it was beautiful. I let him keep it, after that. Trophies were never really something I was interested in, anyway. John used to wear it around his neck. _

_ "I think it was his influence that kept me from doing anything more during that time. The drums would get louder and louder, urging me to hunt and chase and kill, but he… mitigated it. We made a game of it. Finding new ways to take the edge off without truly indulging it. I didn't realize at the time, but it was  _ **_stifling._ ** _ A slow, drawn-out starvation, all because he asked it of me. _

_ "Then came graduation, and the both of us went for universities simply because we had nothing better. But John went back to Scotland, while I stayed in England. It was… painful, at first, but we often wrote letters. _

_ "Without him, though, it was much easier to feed the hunger, to silence the drums with blood. It started small. I would take a knife and hunt down rodents, or the odd deer if I could manage it. It was more about the chase than the catch, so most of the corpses were left to be scavenged. _

_ "I upgraded to humans in 1972, most of the way through a pointless degree in biochemistry. Bernard Rutherford was his name, and he was dreadfully dull. His routine was exactly the same, almost every single day. He would get up, eat plain toast, walk to his first class of the day, walk to his second class, eat the same lunch, walk to his job, and then walk home, make dinner, and sleep. Really, I think I did him a favor by spending a day following him, before I slit his wrists in his flat and left him to bleed out in his own bathroom. It was the most excitement I think the man ever had. _

_ "After that, I kept doing it. Once every few months, I would select a target, and I would hunt them. I always killed them in different ways, so that there'd be no risk of developing a reputation as a serial killer. Usually I'd choose people who no one would miss. Sometimes, I would save pieces to eat, just so that the meat wouldn't go to waste. Back then, I was even human enough for it to be cannibalism. _

_ "In 1974, John started working for your Institute, and we lost touch. It was natural, I suppose, though I resented him for it. I hadn't told him anything, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he knew, somehow, and was punishing me with his absence. John was petty like that, at times. _

_ "Not long after John and I lost contact, I met Missy. Well… perhaps 'met' is the wrong word. We were pursuing the same victim. Not Marshall Quay, but a woman named Theresa Pauls. Missy had left her mark several years prior, but she'd just caught my eye as a good meal that no one would care about, should she wind up dead. _

_ "As soon as I began stalking her, I could tell there was something  _ **_off._ ** _ Someone else's calling card, disorientating and strange. It probably should have scared me, but I was just intrigued. I'd never met anyone else truly like me. John, sympathetic as he had been, was always a little too moral to really understand. _

_ "I let Theresa live longer than most of my victims, just to see if I could catch the attention of whoever else was watching her. And oh, I certainly did. _

_ "I know by now you're probably quite familiar with how those frightened humans describe Missy's halls. Dizzying, terrifying, confusing. I found them beautiful. The perfect place for a hunt, trapping the quarry in a living, twisting trap where I could pursue them as long as I liked before ending it. _

_ "She was still somewhat new to it all, back then. We both were. So, trapped in those lovely mirrors, I made a deal with her. A meal for each of us, and I would do the chasing if she would do the trapping. Win-win. _

_ "I say that she was new to it all, but that's not quite true. Missy was different than any of the others I've met since then. Her patron was different. Where I found fellow Hunters easily enough, once I started looking, I never did find anything else quite like her.  _ **_Missy_ ** _ may have been new, but the creature she was wasn't entirely Missy. It was ancient and infinite and Missy was more a face than an extension. But her patron seemed happy making deals and sharing, so she was as well. _

_ "And that worked, for a while. One of us would pick the mark, play with them for a little bit to fatten them up with terror, and then Missy would drag them into the halls while I hunted. That was when I truly started to get a taste for human flesh. Without the fear of the bodies being found, I could take whatever pieces I wanted. _

_ "It's no coincidence, then, that I became well… this, around the same time. A physical reflection of a metaphysical transformation. Certainly made hunting easier, but it's hell on toothbrushes. _

_ "And then Missy met John, some way or another. One of her victims ran sobbing to tell their story before getting snatched up, I believe, and she watched. Missy took a liking to John. She found him interesting. Apparently, the feeling was mutual. _

_ "I must admit, I'm dreadful at sharing. John and I weren't on speaking terms any more, but he still kept the fox tooth I'd given him, and on some level I still considered him  _ **_mine._ ** _ And the thought of Missy taking that place was unpleasant enough that I decided to call our partnership off. _

_ "That would be my first killing spree, as John called it. I didn't exactly bother with subtlety at that point - in fact, I was hoping to catch his eye. I left some of my victims alive specifically so that they could tell him all about the horrible monster in the woods that ate their friend, or what have you. _

_ "It got his attention, but Missy still seemed to have most of it. When we ran into each other, which I'm certain she orchestrated more than once, she dropped hints about some strange, budding relationship between them. I'm not sure how much was her own twisted perception of John's morbid curiosity and how much was reality, but it didn't matter. _

_ "Going to America was a necessity for several reasons. Foremost, my little spree was catching the attention of law enforcement, and getting caught was the opposite of what I wanted. Slightly less important was the circus. It unnerved me, and still does to this day. So, leaving the area seemed like the best idea. _

_ "I'll spare you the details of America. It was enjoyable, yes, but it's ultimately irrelevant to John's death. _

_ "I still saw Missy, from time to time. Less frequently as the years went by, though I didn't figure out why until after I returned to England. She was as wonderfully incomprehensible as ever, but sometimes she seemed different. More human, and less of her patron. I offered her a chance to hunt together, once, and she turned me down. At first, I thought it was simply because she viewed our dissolving partnership as an insult, but I began to realize that John was, somehow, at fault. _

_ "Somewhere along the way, he'd convinced Missy to try to be  _ **_good_ ** _ again. As if there's any such thing, and he hadn't been best friends with a monster as a child, and he didn't still have the trophy from that monster's first kill. He always was a hypocrite, though. _

_ "I've never regretted the path I took in life. Every step felt like the right one to take, and I hold no guilt over that. From what I know of Missy's life before she became what she was, she couldn't say the same. John saw the chance to unravel something inexplicable and took it, not caring what would happen once Missy lost her structure. _

_ "I wasn't there when she died, though I was in England by then. I'm not even sure how something like her can die, but I imagine it was quite messy. From the way John grieved, I'm sure that he was there to see it. Always seeing, but never quite fast enough to do anything about it. That's how it ended for his poor assistants, too. Witty Clara and poor, trusting Bill... _

_ "Now, despite what you may think, I didn't murder John." _

"But you-"

_ "Shush. Yes, I killed him, but it wasn't out of nowhere. He was miserable, and he asked for me to kill him." _

"You're lying."

_ "You know that I'm not. John wanted to die. I merely put him out of his misery. I made it quick, for him. A slit throat, and then daggers through the eyes. Intimate and fitting, but not drawn out. It was exactly what he requested, actually. _

_ "I believe that covers everything. So, little Archivist, why don't you try to think up some last words? And don't think I'll do you the same courtesy I did John. I expect this will be… quite painful." _


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Stabbing, mentioned blood loss, medical settings

"Why are you going to kill me? What's the  _ point?" _

_ "Mostly, because I can. It's been so fun to watch you panic over the beast lurking in the shadows. But spiting your boss is certainly a bonus. He's got plans that don't need to come to fruition, and with John dead, you're the new key piece." _

"Wait, what plans? Why not just kill Rassilon?"

_ "Because that bastard has a difficult time staying dead. Now, I know when someone is trying to stall for time, little Archivist. I've spent long enough talking about things that matter. I won't be wasting any more time on things that don't." _

"But-"

_ Distant footsteps. _

"Theta? Are you there?"

_ Snarl. _

_ "How did one of them get down here?" _

"Don't you  _ dare _ go after Yaz. Kill me now and leave her alone, she has nothing to do with any of this!"

_ Laughter. _

_ "Well, now you're just  _ **_begging_ ** _ me to catch her. Stay put, little Archivist. I'll be back soon with your friend." _

_ Retreating footsteps. _

"This is bad. This is really, really bad. I need to get out of here,  _ now. _

"Okay. What've I got to work with. Empty room - no doors, though - the chair I'm tied to, recorder, and the mirror. Nothing to cut the rope with. Unless…!"

_ Screeching, perhaps of a chair against a stone floor. _

"Just need to knock it over, and then hopefully it'll-"

_ Crash of shattering glass. _

_ Thunk of a chair hitting the ground. _

"Hah! Now I've got to get through the ropes before Saxon comes back and kills both me and one of my friends. No pressure."

_ Scratching. _

"Almost… Ouch! Cut a little too close, there. It should heal, though. I don't think I hit anything important. And my other wrist should go faster, with one hand free.

"There we go. Ugh, I think I lost blood flow for a bit in this hand. Though I guess that's the least of my worries right now."

_ Sigh. _

"I don't think I can kill Saxon. Even if I tried, he's clever and fast and way stronger than me. But I have to try. At the very least, I can get Yaz out of here before he kills her."

_ Footsteps. _

_ A distant scream. _

"Yaz!"

_ Rapid footsteps. _

_ Snarling. _

"Get off her!"

"Theta-"

_ Thud. _

_ "I told you to  _ **_stay put-"_ **

_ Shouting; several voices, overlapping. _

_ Silence. _

"You- you stabbed him in the eye."

"Yeah."

"Is he-"

"Think so."

"Right."

_ Pause. _

"How did you even get down here, Yaz?"

"When I didn't see you outside after the fire alarm got pulled, I thought something'd happened. As soon as I could come in, I checked your office, and then the archives. There was a trap door that led down to these tunnels, and then…"

"You shouldn't have done that."

"If I hadn't, you'd be dead!"

"You almost died too!"

"Yeah, trying to save you!"

"It wasn't worth it! I'm not-"

_ Groan. _

"Theta?"

"Feeling a little dizzy. Give me just a mo'."

_ Thud. _

"Theta!"

_ Pause. _

"That's a lot of blood. I'm really sorry about this, but I'm gonna have to pick you up. Not that you're conscious enough to complain…

"Huh. Your recorder's still on."

"Ugh. Hospital beds are the worst. Hate hospitals. And I'm stuck here until all the scratches are healed enough that I can take care of them at home. Least Ryan is feeding Idris for me.

"So, bit of a recap, for posterity's sake. And for whoever gets stuck with my job when I die. First, if I die under suspicious circumstances, don't bother investigating unless you want to join me. Second, don't mess with guys that're half wolf, because the claws  _ hurt. _ Third, if you ignore all of this advice, start carrying a knife. You never know when you'll need it.

"One thing I did right, though. If you're going to kill a werewolf, do it in a secret tunnel where nobody will ever think to look. Means I don't have to worry about the authorities poking around. I don't think being accused of murder would make this whole recovery business any easier.

"Yaz told the doctors that I had an incident with an artifact. A cursed letter opener, apparently. There's a couple doctors who work with Institute employees regularly, so it's a good excuse.

"I think that about covers it. I'm going back to sleep now.

"End recording."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you all so much for theorizing and freaking out in the comments - it was a lot of fun to read!  
> I've already got some plans for part two of this series, so that'll probably start posting in about a week. I want to write most of the statements out beforehand this time, since they're what takes up the bulk of the time spent writing these chapters. All of that to say, Theta and co will be back soon, as well as a new friend :)


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